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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, 

Chap. J^..9r^.y^ 



Shelf 



J3^..4^ 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 





^::L-y4l^l^i^(^ 



The Life, Character 



PUBLIC SERVICES 



AS, A, Garfield, 



BY A, G. RIDDLE, 



Axithor of "STUDENTS AND LAWYERS:' "BART R/DGELV," 
"ALICE BRAND," Etc., Etc. 



u 




Philadelphia— Wm. Plfnt. New York— F. S. V.oaxm. 

Chicaw- Tyler & Co. Detroit— R. D. S. Tyler & Co. 

han FraiK-isco— A. L. Bancroft & Co. 

Hartford— CoLUMiiiAN Dook Company. 

Washington— James J. Chapman. 






EnTKRP.I) ACCORPINO To A(T of CoNURfLSS, IN THK YkAK 1?\.S(I, |;V 

W. W. WILLIAMS, 

LN THK OKFICK ok TIIK LIBRARIAN OF CONORKSS, AT WA.SIIINlil'ON. 



% 



DEDICATION, 



\o THE WIFE who shares the great and noble life, 
without being lost in and absorbed by it, who has 
contributed so much to form and cherish it, this attem[>t 
to translate it to his countrymen is, with many treasured 
memories, by permission, dedicated. 

.\. G. R. 
Cleveland. July, iS8o. 



To The Reader. 



Part First of the following volume appeared two years 
ago ill "Williams" History of Geauga and Lake Counties, 
Ohio." It has a completeness in itself, not quite in 
harmony with the more extended work with which it is 
now incorporated. It was written for the purpose of ex- 
hibiting the man during the years of his growtii, to show 
what he grew to be, and was capable of, rather than to 
set forth what he had already achieved. It has a freedom 
of criticism not to be expected in a sketch produced on 
the eve of a national canvass to influence voters in favor 
of a candidate for the Presidency. 

For these reasons it is inserted here entire with no 
changes, save the brief mention of the ancestry and other 
touches, such as the author would have given on a final 
revision of the proof. 

It covers the period from the birth of Mr. (iarficld 
until he appears in congress, where I now take up the 
rapid sketch of his career, and in the spirit of that which 
precedes it, shall endeavor to carry it forward to the 
present. In so broad a life the incidents and events of 
it must be selected from, and subjected to, a rapid treat- 
ment. His connection with the leading policies of the 
government are brought out, with extracts from his 



TO THE READER. 

speeches, a broad treatment of the charges against him, 
his standing as a lawyer, with a final estimate of his char- 
acter and qualities. Much of my information is at first 
hand. The treatment of it, and of the subject of my 
sketch, is entirely my own. A. G. R. 

Mentor, July, 1880. 



CONTENTS. 



PART FIRST. 



CHAPTER I. 

Birth and early incidents 

Great men — Causes which produce unlcnown 

Garfields of England 

Garfields in America .... 

Abram Garfield, the father, account of 

Eliza Ballou, the mother 

James Abram, birth of 

Cabin where born 

Death of father . 

Intellect, early development of 

Critics, young club of 

Cousin Harriet 

Contest with a school-master 

School-house's lock broken five ti 

Growth, size of his head 

Dreams of the sea 

Lake Captain, his brutality 

Canal — on the tow-path 

Battle and victory 

Distance post 

Abandons the canal, and why 

Return — Mother's prayer 

Ague cake 

Chester and school 



Page. 
17 
17 
19 
20 
20 

21, 389 
21 
22 
23 
24 
24 
24 
25 

25 
26 
28 
29 

30. 394 
30 
31 
33 
34 
35 
35 



CHAPTER H. 



Educational Life 

Professor, the first one 

A servant, and how he retired 



PAGE. 

36 
36 
37 



CONTENTS. 






PAGE. 


Six cents at Chester 


38 


Jim Gaffil becomes Mr. Garfield 


38 


Disciples — Conversion .... 


38 


Tiip to Southern Ohio 


39 


Sees a college ..... 


40 


School life ..... 


40 


Hiram Institute ..... 


41 


Career there for two years 


42 


Why he went to Williams College . , 


42 


Feelings and experience 


43 


Graduates after two years .... 


44 


Metaphysics ..... 


44 


Means and money ..... 


45 


Professor of language at Hiram 


46 


Preaches among the Disciples 


47 


A public speaker .... 


49 



CHAPTER HI. 



War experiences .... 

Elected to the Ohio senate, 1859 

Plans of life ..... 

Studies law .... 

Approach of the war and preparation 

J. D. Cox— James Monroe 

War studies ..... 

Cox gets the start .... 

Ohio Seventh and Cross Lanes 

Ohio Forty-second, lieutenant colonel of 

Buell General, interview with 

Garfield plans the campaign of Middle creek 

Brigade, command of ... 

Campaign against Humphrey Marshall 

Battle and incidents .... 

Flight of Marshall 

Estimate of the campaign 

Stears the Sandy Valley up the Big Sandy 

Brigadier general, his command 

Battle of Corinth .... 

Ordered to Washington 

Porter, Fitz John, trial of 

General Hunter selects him 

Army of the Cumberland, becomes chief of staff of 

Rosecrans and re-organization 

Recommends change of officers 



50 
50 
50 
51 
52 
54 
54 
55 
56 
56 
56 
56 
57 
58 
59 
60 
61 
62 
63 
63 
63 
64 
64 
64 
64 
64 



CONTENTS. 



Overrules the seventeen generals 

Campaign of Tullahoma 

Chickamauga .... 

Right wing broken — panic 

Garfield tries to rally it, in vain 

Joins Thomas on the left 

Battle terrible 

Last guns— Thomas remains on the field 

Washington again 

Promoted for gallantry on the field 

Scheme to supplant Lincoln 

Garfield suppresses it . . ■ 

Elected to Congress 

CHAPTER IV. 

Characteristics 

Estimate of the man 

What is his lack 

His plans of life . . . ■ 

Leaves himself to events 

Not a self seeker 

Chivalrous courage 

Faces the re-nominating convention 

Growth and development 

Fear of being brought forward for Presidency prematurely 



PAGE. 


, 


65 




66 




66 




66 




67 




ej 




63 




68 


68, 91 


94 




68 




69 




69 




70 


PAGE. 


72. 


390 




72 




73 




74 


75 • 


402 




75 




76 


77. 


107 


78. 


402 



PART SECOND. 



CHAPTER L 

Congressional life .... 

The House of Representatives 
A progressive body .... 

Its true estimate of its own men 
Personnel of the members 

Colfax, Stevens, Washburn, and others— old members- 
Remarkable new men .... 
Blaine, Creswell, Boutwell ■ . 
Senate sketches .... 

Garfield's district ..... 



•sketched 



PAGE. 
81 
81 

82 
83 
85 

86 
88 
88 
89 
90 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER II. 

Life at the Capital 

Little Trot 

Offers of General Thomas 

Resolves to return to the anny 

Lincoln's offer 

Military committee 

The army in 1863 

Army education for the House 

Residence in Washington 

Mrs. Lecont's — Semi-headquarters . 

Knows about anesthesia 

A reminiscence — Almeda Booth 

Confiscation speech 

Status of Rebel States 

Effect of speech 

Estimate of it 

Opposes increase of bounties 

Garfield measured by a crisis, and is equal to it 

A picture .... 

Chief Justice Chase advises him to do the heroic sparingly 

The draft law and what it did 

New bill — Debate — Speech — Bill lost 

Lincoln interviews the committee 

Prospect ..... 

Pending election of members 

Lincoln answers the office seekers 

Substitute passed 

Proclamation of President — Answer 

Garfield asked to resign, and what followed 

Commercial relations with Canada . 

Reply to Long — Speech extracts 

Garfield's position before the country 

Presidential election, 1864 

Wade-Davis manifesto 

Popular indignation against Garfield 

Re-nomination — Determination of the district 

A challenge to him 

Speech in convention 

"Truly yours, more truly my own" 

Re-nominated by acclamation 

Abolition of slavery 

Lincoln's offer rejected by slaveholders 

Tliirteenth amendment 



96, 



P.\GE. 
91 
91 
91 
92 
92 
92 

93 
93 
94 
94 
95 
384 



97 

98 

98 

98 

99 

99 

99 

100 

100 

100 

100 

100 

lOI 
lOI 
lOI 
lOI 
lOI 
102, 106 
106 
106 
106 
106 
107 
107 
107 
108 
108 
109 
109 
109 



CONTENTS. 



Pendleton's speech — Garfield's reply — Extracts 



no. III, 112 



CHAPTER III. 

Assassination — Garfield in Xew York . 

Restoration — Studies 1865 

Chooses to be placed on ways and means 

Revenue legislation 

Anniversary of assassination 

Felicitous speech given entire 

Estimate of speech — Memory . 

Great case of Milligan 

Old Capitol prison — Denounces Stanton 

Episode — Goes to Europe — Diary 

Return — State election and platform, 1867 

Greenback lunacy .... 

Re-union at Jefferson 

Asked to take the platiorm — Reply 





PAGE. 






"3 




114. 


"5 

115 




116, 


117 
117 


117. 


118, 


119 
120 


120, 121, 


359. 


366 




120, 


122 




123, 


128 
129 
129 



130 



CHAPTER IV. 

Fortieth Congress 

Character of the Fortieth congress — Sessions 

Xew men — Morton and others . 

War with President Johnson 

Speech on government of rebel States . 

Rebuke of General Hancock 

Final impeachment — Speech 

Currency speeches .... 

Arlington oration 

Ta.xing bonds — Answers Pike and Butler 

Chairman military committee — Labors . 

CHAPTER V. 



PAGE. 
• 131 

132 

. 132. 133 

133. 134 

• 133. 134 

135 

136. 157. 170 

137. 138, 139 

139 
140, 141 



Banking and currency ...... 

Gold Panic — Black Friday ..... 

Investigation by Garfield and report . . . 143 

Power of Senate to originate money bills — Garfield's speech 
Banks and banking — Speech . . . -157. 



PAGE. 

142 

143 
156 

176 



CHAPTER VI. 

Political Economy 

At Williams . . . . 

Great Speech, January, 1872, 

Reply to Tucker — E.xtract — Protection 



PAGE. 

171 
172 

175-183 
184 



CONTENTS. 



Curious Heads covering information 

Hoop iron ...... 

Transportation — Railroad system — Speech 

CHAPTER Vn. 

Appropriation— Expenditure 

Forty-second congress, famous for Garfield's work 

Chairman committee on appropriations 

Committee — Personnel of 

His preliminary study — Budgets, English 

Our practice 

Rules for expenditure 

War expenses 

Each member to make his own fame, and wear it 

Old Hiram experience 

Civil appropriation bill — Great speech 

Relation of expenditure to Government 

How shall expenditure be gauged? 

Test of population 

Territory .... 

Expenditure of England 

Duration of war expenses 

Reduction of the public debt 

Surplus and deficit 

History and cause of deficits 

Condition of the treasury 

Removal of the Flatheads . 

Returns to hear of the Credit Mobilier 



PAGE. 

184 
185 

I86-I9I 



PAGE. 
192 
192 
192 

193 

195 

196 
196 
193 
198 
199 
200 
201 
201 
204 
206 
209 
210 
212 



216 



PART THIRD. 



CHAPTER I. 

Calumny . . • • 

Three charges and their names 

Credit :Mobilier 

Mr. Blaine demands investigation 

The committee, and sketch of the case 

Sketch of the ground 

Credit Mobilier and Union Pacific railroad 

Fraud on the United States 

Value of Credit Mobilier stock 



PAGE. 
218 
219 
220 
220 



224 
224 



CONTENTS. 



Conspiracy a secret 

Oakes Ames, trustee, sells stocks to M. C.'s 

Character of the men 

They were not informed 

Ames sued for the stock — letters— list 

Garfield's statement 

McComb's account of Credit Mobilier 

Durant's account of Credit Mobilier 

Resolution creating Poland committee 

Report on Garfield's case 

Report criticised ..... 231, 

Mr. Garfield protests against it ... 

Case taken up anew 

Oakes Ames as a witness 

Contradicts him.self 

His sworn statements directly contradictory 

A reason for the change 

Testimony of Oakes Ames 

Swears that the after-accruing dividends were never paid or 

asked for 
His statement of Garfield's account, with date of payment to 

Garfield ....... 

Check by which it is paid dated later 

Unjust method of procuring untrue answers 

Comment on same ..... 

Ames' old book for 1868 finally produced 

His list dated January 2, 1869 .... 

Garfield's name on it as one to be paid thereafter 

Another list — men to be paid, though marked paid — dated June 

31, 1868 ...... 

Swears this was made before men were paid 

Another account with Garfield .... 

Swears this was never settled ..... 

Evidence commented on . 

Unaccountable conduct of the parties if Garfield is implicated 

Garfield's statement of May, 1873 — extract 

His statement to committee 

Judge Black's statement in support 

President Hinsdale's 

Hon. J. P. Robison's 



PAGE. 




225 




226 




227 


. 


227 


227 


228 




229 




229 




230 




230 


231 


233 


232 


233 




233 




234 




235 




235 


236, 


237 




237 



238, 242 
240, 241 

241 

242 
242 

243 
244 
244 
244 



245 
245 

246 
246 
248 
248 
249 
253 
254 

255 
2.s6 



249. 



Conclusion 



CHAPTER H. 



"Salary Grab" 

Resolution requiring his resignation 



257. 374 

PAGE. 
258 



CONTENTS. 



Public opinion .... 
Never held the money in his hand 
Garfield's statement 
Speech at Warren, 1874, extract 

CHAPTER III. 

The DeGolyer contract 

Sketch of the District of Columbia government 

J. M. Wilson's letter, concerning 

Real character of Garfield's connection with 

contract .... 

One Glover and his inquisition 
His enquiring mind — His methods 
Finally sealed up with seven seals 
His course with the DeGolyer contract 
Chicago Times unearths Glover's remains 
The spry Nickerson as a witness 
Garfield confronts him 
Garfield's evidence 
Conclusive nature of it 
Nickerson's last words 
Case summed up . . . 





PAGE. 


. 


. 258 


. 


259 


. 


259, 260 


• 


261 




PAGE. 




262 


t 


262, 265 




. 26s 


the DeGolyer 






. • 265 




266, 267 




266 




266 




267 




267 




267 




268, 270 


. 


270, 275 




275 


. 


275 




277 



PART FOURTH. 



CHAPTER I. 

Life at the Capital resumed 

End of Republican supremacy 

New and old men 

Record of a day — A Washington sketch 

Society in Washington 

Garfield's home life in Washington . 



PAGE. 

278 
279 
279, 282 
282, 288 
288 
289 



CHAPTER H. 

PAGE. 

The Forty-fourth congress ..... 290 

Departure of Sumner ..... 290 

New men ....... 291 

Fifteen years of Democratic absence and opposition . 291 

Garfield's place on committees .... 292, 293 

Causes of Republican subsidence . . . . 293 

Ex-rebels in their war paint ..... 294 



CONTEXTS. 



Their record in congressional directory 

Course and temper of the Republicans . 

Amnesty battle brought on by Blaine 

New amnesty bill 

Blaine's speech — Effect 

Mr. Hill and his great speech in reply . 

Its effect .... 

Garfield has the floor 

His answer to Hill 

Reply to Hill continued . 

Proof of Davis' complicity . 

Hill's charges of cruelty to rebel prisoners 

Garfield's reply 

Number of prisoners on each side 

Reasons for not exchanging prisoners 

Effect of the speech 

CHAPTER HI. 



The Democracy not to be trusted 

Summer at the Capital 

A memorable day 

Mr. Lamar and his work 

His great speech — Substance of . 

Alarm of the Republicans 

Nature of the contest 

Garfield 

His leadership — Big-boyism 

His great reply to Lamar 

Asks Lamar a question 

Quotes from Lamar's speech of 1858 

How the South accepts the results of the war 

Democratic fitness for rule 

Vindicates the Republicans 

Estimate of the speech — Its effect . 

Freaks of fortune 

The visiting statesman at New Orleans 

CHAPTER IV. 



Attempted revolution ...... 

Presidential election of 1876 .... 

The commission and its work .... 337, 

Garfield's speech against the bill creating electoral commission 
Is unanimously placed on the commission . . 

Opinions in the commission .... 



PAGE. 

294, 295 

295 

296 

296 

296, 297 

298, 300 

300, 301 



305. 314 
305 
307 

307. 308 
308 

309, 311 
315 



PAGE. 
316 
316 
317 
317 
318, 320 
321 
321 
321 
322 

323. 334 
325 
325 
326, 331 
332. 334 
334 
335 
336 
336 

PAGE. 

337 
337 
339 
339 
340 
340 



CONTENTS. 

Other speeches 

Extra session of the Forty-sixth congress 

Reasons for it . 

Fraud and Tilden-Thurman counter-irritant 

Old army bill — old rider remounted 

Garfield opens the debate — Speech 

Question stated 

Voluntary power of the government 

Free consent the basis of our law 

Democrats responsible for the election" law 

New rebellion .... 

Course of debate — Replies to Garfield 

Garfield's rejoinder 

Effect of his leading speech 

Speech of April i6 — of June 27 

Debate continues .... 

Gain of the Extra session to the Democrats 

Noble speech in favor of a survey of the Mississippi 

Other speeches ..... 



PAGE. 

340 
341 

341 
341 
342 

342. 349 
343 
344 
345 
346 
347 
349 

350. 351 

3.';0' 351 

352 
353 
353 
354 
354 



PART FIFTH. 



CHAPTER I. 

In other characters — conclusion 

Resolves to decline the ministry 

Will study law — method — admitted 

The Milligan case— his first case . . . i 

The court and where it sat . 

Course of the Government and principles involved . 

The case and counsel .... 

Argument ...••• 

Decision of the case .... 

Mr. Garfield's compensation 

The Alexander Campbell will case 

The testator and will .... 

Garfield retained for the devisees, and his preparation 

Case tried to the court in 1867 

Incidents of the trial .... 

Result and compensation .... 

Life insurance cases .... 

His labors and fees in them 

Extent of practice and earnings 





356 


• 357 


358 


358 


359 


!0, 121, 359 


366 


359 


360 


360, 361 




361 


362, 363 


. 


365 




371 




366 




367 




367 




368 


I • 


369 




371 


. 


372 




372 


372 


. 373 



CONTEXTS. 



Practice of senators and representatives in the supreme court 
Amount of earnings at the bar * . 
Estimate of Garfield as a lawyer — his intellect 



PAGE. 

373 
373 

374 



CHAPTER II. 



Miscellaneous work 
Its character and extent 
North American Review 
The American congress 
George H. Thomas 
Almeda Booth 
Dr. Robison 
Eliza Mother 



CHAPTER III 



Conclusion 

The real man — A sketch 

As he appears 

Person and manners 

Old canal memories 

Warmth, tenderness, love . 

Judge of men 

Sense of the congruous 

Instances — The bare-footed girl 

The lattice .... 

Completeness of mind and character 

Rare memory 

Arlington oration 

Constructive power 

Methods of work 

Rank as an orator . 

A born actor 

Eulogy of Grant in the Wilderness 

Literary style 

His life shaped wholly by events 

Growth on the public 

Conclusion .... 

Masterly speech at Painesville . 



375 
375 

376 

377. 380 

382, 384 

96, 384, 387 

387 



PAGE. 

390 
72, 73, 390 

392 

393 
394 
394 

395 
396 
396 
396 
397 
398 
398 
399 
399 
400 
400 
400 
402 
402 
78, 402 
403 
403-405 



CONTENTS. 



Chester A. .Arthur. 



CHAPTER I. 



Place of birth .... 

His parentage 

College life .... 

Teaches school 

His course as a lawyer 

Important cases 

His course during the war 

CHAPTER II. 

Collector of Customs, New York 

The true story of his removal 

His warm attachment to General Grant 

His popularity as a man 

His domestic life 



Illustrations. 





PAGE. 




409 




409, 410 




410 




410 


411 


412, 413 




413. 414 


414 


416, 417 




PAGE. 


. 


419, 423 




424, 425 




426 




427 


. 


427 



PAGE. 

Portrait of General Garfield . . . Frontispiece 

Birthplace of James A. Garfield . . . .22 

Young Garfield's canal experience . . facing 30 

Defeat of Humphrey Marshall . . . "59 

Private residence of James A. Garfield.^Mentor, O. . 217 

Portrait of General Chester A. Arthur . . facing 409 



PART FIRST. 



FROM BIRTH TO CONGRESS, 



LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 



CHAPTER I. 

BIRTH AND EARLY INCIDENTS. 

The Generations of the Garfields. — The Mother Birth. — Loss of His 
Father. — The Home. — Eagerness for Books. — Case vs. a Schoolmas- 
ter. — Rape of a Lock. — What EUza Thought. — Growth and Size. — 
A Dream of the Sea. — Repulse by a Lake Captain. — Begins on the 
Tow-path. — Promotion. — First Fight. — How the Second was not 
Fought. — Reflection and Return. — Overhears His Mother's Prayer. 
— An Ague Cake. 

Great men rarely, perhaps never, appear under similar 
circumstances. A man and woman under common con- 
ditions, and yet marked with minor variations, wed, and 
a genius is born of them. The vulgar observers of his 
advent look to see it repeated from other twos, under 
similar conditions. So men who observe something mean 
or common in the early years of a great man's life usual- 
ly attribute his success to that. In the boyhood of 
General Garfield, he drove the horses that dragged a 
canal-boat on an Ohio canal one or two trips, and his 
biographers have usually set this forth as the leading event 
of his youth, and as quite all that is known of him, and 
this is supposed to have given the bent and impetus 



1 8 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

which launched him on the world as one of the great 
men of his time. 

The birth of a great man is a thing of accident to the 
parents, and this enhances the wonder in the eyes of 
men. Nature has no accidents, nor is she surprised at 
her own work. All are equally prepared for and of 
equal importance to her. It matters not whether we say 
Providence had certain results to work out, and prepared 
a specially endowed man for its accomplishment, or that 
certain particles of organic matter — protoplasm — have 
certain properties, which flowing along the vital channels, 
gathering and losing as they flow, unite, when those 
channels coincide, with a certain result. The-ordinary 
incidents of human life push the ordinary man along 
the usual courses. He does the common work of life, 
works their processes, because he has the power to do it. 
because he. can do no other. The same incidents push 
the extraordinarily-endowed man along the same avenues, 
and he grapples with the unusual, the extraordinary, and 
both lives are necessary results of natural causes. 

A herd of men, strangers to each other, enter the Am- 
erican house of representatives. Two or three, half a 
dozen, go sooner or later to the lead, become creators 
and directors, because it is in them to do that work. 
The rest are led, because it is in them to be conducted 
by the others. What has produced the difference, and 
whence was derived the leading elements and qualities 
of the men, is the problem. 

In the instance with which I am to deal I shall not 
attempt its solution. I can only hint at scanty antece- 



BIRTH AND EARLY INCIDENTS. 1 9 

dents. We know that much, many unusual qualities, 
went to the making up of the subject of this sketch. 
Just what they antecedently were, and how they were 
united in his production, is a matter of the vaguest 
speculation. The conditions of such an inquiry are 
not in our hands, and the science which should guide 
it is of the unborn. 

Some popular delusions must vanish in reference to 
him. He did not grow up a stalwart, unlettered, good- 
natured Orson of the wood, nursed by a bear till seven- 
teen or eighteen, and then under sudden inspiration rush 
through school and college in an intellectual rage, rav- 
ishing from the sciences their sweets and secrets, drawing 
from books their blood and souls, and devouring and 
assimilating teachers and professors. 

Most men who become remarkable finally, have a kind 
of mythology constructed about their obscure early years. 
All the curious things of fact or fancy in the region where 
they live are conferred on them. General Garfield is 
an eminent example of this fortune, and the busy hand 
of fiction is supplementing the natural growth with works 
of its own. 

One tradition assigns the origin of the Garfields to 
Wales, and mainly on the ground of the similarity of the 
name to that of a venerable ruin in that country. The 
better opinion is that they are of Saxon descent. The 
family had its seat at Tuddington, Middlesex county, as 
early as the twelfth century. The crest of the house is a 
heart, with a hand rising out of it, grasping a sword. 
The legend, vincit amor patrice. The name is inscribed 



20 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

on the roll of Battle Abbey, as that of a crusader, which 
the arms are said to indicate. 

The family first appeared in this country at Watertown, 
Massachusetts, in 1635, of which Edward Garfield was one 
of the proprietors, and where he died in 1672. He had 
a son, Edward, who became the father of Captain Ben- 
jamin Garfield, a very conspicuous man, who represented 
Watertown many years in the general court, and died in 
1 7 1 7. One of his sons was Lieutenant Thomas Garfield, 
who bore on the tide of descent, imparting it to a son 
Thomas, who, in turn, became the father of a Solomon 
Garfield. Solomon comes within lingual reach of the gen- 
eral, being his great-grandfather. He also had a brother, 
Abraham, who fought at Concord and Lexington, and 
joined with John Hoar and John Whitehead in a deposi- 
tion, proving that the British fired the first gun of the war. 
This Solomon married Sarah Stimson, and pushed off for 
the wooded hills of Otsego, New York, where his son 
Thomas was born. His wife, when he grew to have one, 
was Aseneath Hill, of Sharon. To these were born 
Abram Garfield, father of the general, and Thomas, of 
Newburgh, Ohio. 

Abram was a man of heroic proportions, endowed 
with marvelous physical strength; one of those large- 
souled, generous-hearted men who, notwithstanding they 
might overcome by weight and strength, nevertheless win 
by the sweetness and richness of their natures. Many 
legends exist of his great strength. A laboring man, all 
his implements and tools had lo be of a corresponding 
si/e and weight; and, though, the best-natured man in 



BIRTH AXD EARLY INXIDENTS. 21 

the world, his courage matched his strength, and on 
more than one occasion he employed it in resisting 
others. Once on the Ohio canal, where he had a large 
job, and was living with his young wife, a gang of hands, 
the roughs of a neighboring job, led by two bullies, 
the terror of the whole line, came to get up a row with 
his men. At the first demonstration of these leaders he 
sprang upon and overcame them effectually ere their fel- 
lows came to their aid, and thus secured peace. He 
was from that moment the acknowledged monarch of 
the line of work, and ruled generously. Abram had a 
half-brother, Amos Boynton, his mother's son by another 
husband, whose fortunes were connected with his. 

At the foot of Mount Monadnock, in New Hampshire, 
lived a brother of Hosea Ballou, and of this family were 
two daughters, Eliza and a sister. Highly endowed in- 
tellectually, reared with the care and circumspection of 
New England, with its thrift and prudent economies, 
these sisters became the wives of these brothers, Eliza 
wedding with Abram. Of these two — this grandly- 
formed, large-natured, large-souled, kindly man, and this 
slight, intellectual, spirited, high-souled, and pious 
woman — was born James A., their fourth and last child, 
and ninth in descent from Edward, of Watertown — born 
to the heart and sword of the Crusader. The event oc- 
curred in the woods of Orange, Cuyahoga county, No- 
vember 19, 1 83 1. A picture of the humble dwelling in 
which our hero was born may be seen on the following 
page. It has a rustic look. Although long since torn 
down and removed, it can be reUed upon as a faithful 



2 2 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

representation of General Garfield's birthplace, as it was 
drawn from a full description given by Mr, Garfield him- 
self. 




BIRTHPLACE OF GENERAL GARFIELD. 

After the canal job, the brothers took their families to 
make for them permanent homes in Orange, built their 
cabins near each other, and, save one, there was then no 
human habitation within six miles of them. The Gar- 
fields were alive with a generous ambition to win more 
than a bare subsistence. The implements of work were 
to be the weapons with which to conquer labor, and not 
whips in the hands of necessity to scourge them as the 
slaves of toil. Work, hard, long continued, and unre- 
mitting, to make a home of intelligence and virtue for 
their children, and, with the leisure and opportunity, for 
better culture for themselves. The forest rapidly yielded 
to the eight-pound axe of Garfield. In time an exten- 
sive field, surrounded by the woods, was ripening its 



BIRTH AND EARLY INCIDENTS. 23 

wheat in the summer sun. A fire in the forest threatened 
its destruction. By a desperate exercise of strength and 
activity the crop was saved. The overtaxed man, over- 
come by heat, sat in the cool wind, and contracted a vio- 
lent sore throat. A quack came, placed a blister upon 
it, and the strong man was strangled. He only said, 
"Eliza, I have planted four saplings in these woods. I 
leave them in your care." He walked to the window, 
called his faithful oxen by name, and died. 

When the earth was placed over him, the battle of life 
for Eliza began. The eldest child was a stout lad of ten. 
The first work was to complete the unfinished fence, to 
protect the wheat. The rails for this were split by the 
slender Eliza, and the two laid them up. The land was 
unpaid for. Food was to be won from the earth. 

At his father's death, James was less than two years 
old; the second and third children were daughters. The 
eldest inherited his father's generous and devoted nature 
in large measure. With him, till he was thirty years of 
age, there was but one purpose in life, — to help his 
mother, and do all within his power for his sisters and 
younger brother. 

-The Garfields and Boyntons, isolated from others, by 
neighborhood, education, and habits of life, were greatly 
dependent on each other for society, and grew up almost 
one family. The young Boyntons, as the Garfield?, espe- 
cially the daughters and James, were of quick parts and 
great intelligence. They had between them a few books. 
They generally managed to have a school at least during 
the winters. So far as the future statesman was con- 



24 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

cerned, instead of growing up untutored until the divine 
frenzy seized him, he became a good reader when he was 
three years old, and could almost repeat the contents of 
some of the volumes at his command, at an age when 
the children of to-day are thought first eligible to the 
alphabet. Eliza knew her responsibility, and entered 
upon the task of his education. He early made great 
proficiency, and the man who fancies that the stupidity 
of his son is the counterpart of the child or boyhood of 
General Garfield is sadly misinformed on a vital matter. 
So emulous were the young people that, mastering all 
the branches taught in their early schools, they annoyed 
and worried their teachers about studies and lessons, and 
with questions quite beyond their reach. At an early 
day, and when James was advanced enough to take part 
in it, they established among themselves a class of critics, 
to examine and determine the accuracy of the use and 
pronunciation of words and the construction of sen- 
tences. To this class and its critical labors General 
Garfield expresses his obligation for the habit of care- 
fully scanning the use of words, and their arrangement 
in sentences and paragraphs, written or spoken. 

His cousin Harriet and himself associated the most in 
their literary labors. Somewhere they came across a 
volume of tales of the sea, — some kind of "Pirates' 
Own Book," — with which they became fascinated. They 
went over with the worn, but never worn-out, stories, till 
the young boy's imagination took fire, and he read and 
dreamed a boy's impossible career on the ocean. Some 
vein of a love of roving sea-life and adventure had come 



BIRTH AND EARLY INCIDENTS. 25 

to him with his other gifts from some Norse ancestor, — 
some old viking, — which this book kindled, and which 
has never quite burned out or been extinguished. What 
came of it may be seen later. 

His father and mother had early become interested in 
the religious movement on the Reserve, which resulted 
in the organization of the Disciple churches, and this gave 
to her maternal care and admonition the religious sanc- 
tion of her convictions of duty and destiny. A woman 
of spirit, with a capacity to manage and control children ; 
to all a mother's solicitude and anxieties was added some 
apprehension on account of James, a frank, natural, 
tender-hearted, loving boy. Every fibre of his large 
frame was redolent of a love of fun, and not without a 
spirit of mischief, while his eldest cousin, Boynton, was 
the embodiment of ingenious hectoring. There was one 
notable winter, in which the boys convicted a teacher, in 
the then populous district, of incapacity to parse a 
sentence of ordinary English. They agitated against 
him, demanded his expulsion, and made so clear and 
strong a case on him that a school-meeting was called of 
the patrons, before which they appeared as prosecutors, 
and sustained their charges. Despite the popular voice, 
he managed to retain his place, and most of the scholars, 
with the Boyntons and Garfields, were withdrawn. These 
were in the habit of holding their lyceum debates and 
other exercises in the school-house each week. To pre- 
vent this, the door was locked against them. Boys, 
under such circumstances, show as little respect for locks 
as does love. The youths held their meeting inside the 



26 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

house as usual. A man was dispatched to Cleveland, 
twelve or fourteen miles, for another lock, which was out 
of the way in time. Never was there such a door or 
such locks, though, doubtless, the world is full of such 
boys. At the fifth and last of these failures of the locks, 
careful Mrs. Eliza discovered that the handle of her fire- 
shovel showed marks of a strange usage, and there is a 
tradition that the new-fallen snow retained the imprint 
of a foot — of two feet — that always turned back to her 
house as home. The good woman was greatly disturbed. 
She still looks grave at every reference to that magical 
school-house door. James escaped Middle Creek and 
Chickamauga, the greater perils of Congress, but expia- 
tion may still be required for the "rape of a lock." 

He largely inherited the proportions, strength and per- 
sonal qualities of his father, and in the open-air life, 
active exercise, simple fare, and regular habits of such a 
boy, he grew rapidly, and at sixteen was a full-blooded, 
rollicking, spirited, light-hearted boy, living and growing. 
Though quick-witted, with considerable power of mimicry, 
more exercised than now, we can fancy him a very green- 
looking boy, with the untrained, uncouth ways of the youth 
of the country of that day. One would like to know what 
he thought of himself. Of couse, he sometimes looked 
in the glass, where he met a broad, round, laughing, richly 
florid face, laughing blue eyes, expressive of little but 
animal good nature. What did he think of that immense 
head ? Of course, he tried on the hats of other boys — 
of men — and could get it into none of them. Did he 
ever think of that? Did he all the time carry around 



BIRTH AND EARLV I^XIDENTS. 27 

that callow mass of brain, without a suspicion of what it 
might become? Did he think he was like other boys — 
one of the common sort to work and play, be kind, love 
mother, sister, brother, cousins, especially cousin Harriet; 
chop wood and clear land, hoe corn, dig potatoes, run 
and jump, throw down all the boys, live and vegetate in 
Orange — hilliest and remotest of townships — with no 
thought or suspicion to the coming? The mule carries 
alike a sack of coals, a casket of gems, or precious gums, 
as a horse bears a clown or prince, not knowing the dif- 
ference. A boy is not a mule — is something better than 
a horse. When does it dawn upon a man of remarkable 
parts, not that he is unlike others — every one feels his 
unlikeness to his fellows — but that he has parts in excess 
of others. The fool, perhaps, always thinks that. I am 
not dealing with a fool. A man is as much of a mystery 
and a revelation to himself as others. It is probably best 
that impending superiority be hidden from young mor- 
tals of the male species. 

His principal business — whatever his ultimate destiny 
— of these years, was to live and grow strong and healthy. 
Growing wise was not then in order. It never becomes 
so to the mass apparently. He was to strengthen and 
develop, broaden and deepen; must be wide in the shoul- 
ders, deep in the chest, straight in loin, strong and straight 
in leg and thigh, with immense lung and heart power. 
The base of the brain was of more consequence then; 
no matter what Humphrey Marshall, Senator Lamar, or 
Judge Kelley might severally be doing in those years, it 
was his business to grow; by and by he will ripen, and at 



28 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

an early day, for use. And so, in his sixteenth year, in the 
spring, he went to Newburgh to chop one hundred cords 
of wood — I don't know what he was to receive for it. It 
is not of the least consequence whether it was twenty or 
twenty-five dollars. It was not money that was of the 
chief use to him, though he worked for it. 

From the margin of the wood where was his work, 
there was an outlook of the wide lake, on which under 
the deep blue of the March and April sky, went the 
white-winged ships. Day by day there to the North was 
the bright ridge of slaty-blue, "the high seas" of the 
books. It was like the sea of which he had always 
dreamed. It was the sea, and there were ships and 
sailors and sailor-boys. All the latent longings of his 
nature, quickened and fed by his childish reading, were 
aroused. Here lay the sea beckoning to him. Here 
he would begin and master the rudiments, — a funny 
idea for a boy at his age, this of thoroughness of begin- 
ning at the bottom. When he had mastered these fields 
of fresh water, he would go and take the boundless 
ocean, — that which is itself the boundary. And so he 
chopped and split and piled his hundred cords of wood, 
pausing to gaze and sigh and resolve. He was to be a 
sailor, not "a fisher of men." In one of these mysteri- 
ous coming and going, never staying, weird phantoms of 
the blue, he would come and go, toss and beat, and see 
the far-off regions of the east, which lay in his ardent 
imagination like colored bubbles or painted dreams, only 
he knew they were real. And over the wide Pacific, the 
world of sundown seas and living islands, these should 



BIRTH AND EARLY INXIDEXTS. 29 

rise cut of the blue and come to meet him, and his feet 
should tread their shores. All this should be his; and 
thus he dreamed as he chopped and piled his wood. 

He afterwards hired out to a Mr. Treat during the 
haying and harvesting season, and still dreamed of the 
sea. With his small earnings, putting by the persuasions 
and entreaties of his mother, he made his way to Cleve- 
land to begin at the bottom and work up. In the harbor 
he found but a single vessel which he thought he would 
like to go on. To that he made his way, stepped lightly 
up the gangway, and asked eagerly for the captain ; was 
told that he was below, but would be on deck in a minute. 
He had never, save in dreams and pictures, seen a cap- 
tain, a poetic hero, a cross of angel and pirate, in feather 
and spangles, — instead of which there stepped on deck 
a hardened, red-faced, brutal wretch, half drunk. He 
was evidently in a towering rage. The nascent rover of 
the blue modestly asked him if he wanted a hand. The 
enraged brute turned and poured upon him his pent 
wTath in curses, oaths, and made no other answer. The 
men on deck heard this v.'ith illy suppressed chuckles. 
The poor boy, struck dumb, endured one minute of dis- 
tressed awkward silence, which seemed an age before 
he could recover and walk away. 

So far from curing him of his sea longing, it strength- 
ened and gave it a new direction, or rather, it suggested 
a new and the true mode of the entrance upon his ca- 
reer. The captain's treatment showed him that he was 
too j'oung and green to become a sailor without some 
initiatory process. In turning the matter over in his 



30 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

mind, the canal presented itself as the true starting-point, 
and from the canal he would graduate to the lake, and 
so flow out to the ocean. On the canal the lowest point 
was that of driver. For this post he would compete. 
To a canal-boat he went. The first boat he applied to 
wanted a driver, and he secured the situation. 

Poor boy I Had his career ended with that trip, as it 
came near doing, not a woman but would weep for his fate. 
He had not tlie faintest idea of swimming, and knew noth- 
ing of water, save as a beverage, and occasionally to wash 
hands in. On that first and most important tour he fell in- 
to the canal fcmrieen times, and had fourteen miraculous 
escapes from drowning. After all he showed his quality, 
and on return to port, the end of his first and last round 
trip as driver from Cleveland to Beaver, he was promoted 
from the tow-path to the deck, as bowsman. This brought 
a new experience. On his second trip he had his first 
fight. While in motion, he stood on deck, with a "set- 
ting-pole" on his shoulder, some twenty feet from Da%'e, 
a great, good-natured, hulking boatman, with a quick 
temper, with whom he was on good terms. The boat 
gave a lurch, the pole was sent with violence in the di- 
rection of Dave, and reached him before the warning 
cry. It struck him midships. Garfield expressed his 
sorrow promptly. Dave turned upon the luckless boy 
with curses, and threatened to thrash him. Garfield 
knew he was innocent even of carelessness. The threat 
of flogging by a heavy man of thirty-five roused the hot 
Garfield and Ballou blood. Dave rushed upon him 
with his head down, like an enraged bull. As he came 



BIRTH AND EARLY INXIDENTS. 3 1 

on, Garfield sprang to one side, and dealt him a power- 
ful blow just back of and under the left ear. -Dave 
went to the bottom of the boat with his head between 
two beams, and his now heated foe went after him, seized 
him by the throat, and lifted the same clenched hand — 
the left — for another buffet. "Pound the d — d fool to 
death, Jim !" called the appreciative captain. "If he haint 
no more sense than to get mad at an accident, he orto 
die." And as the youth hesitated — "Why don't you 
strike?" D — n me if I'll interfere." He could not. The 
man was down, helpless, in his power. Father, as well 
as mother, stayed the blow. Dave expressed regret at 
his rage. Garfield gave him his hand, and they were 
better friends than ever. 

The victory gave him as much prestige along the canal 
as that accorded him through the North for thrashing 
Humphrey INIarshall at Middle Creek. The general 
says that not long after he came near being thrashed 
himself, and for cause deemed sufficient by the interna- 
tional code of the canal. At a certain distance each way 
from either gate of a lock is set what is called a "distance- 
post." If it happens that two boats approach a lock at 
the same time, the one that first reaches his distance- 
post has the first use of the lock, and the other must lie 
to and wait. The bowsman who violates this rule of 
reasonable law does so at the peril of immediate war. 
At a lonely place in the canal one night, Garfield's boat 
and one from the other way approached a lock at the 
same time. The other reached his distance-post first. 
In an instant's rashness, Garfield, disregarding the other's 



32 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

rights, dashed on, opened the lock-gates at his end, and 
thus took possession of it. The insult was appreciated. 
The rival bowsman, a burly infuriated Irishman, leaped 
from his boat and made for his foe, illuminating h!s 
approach with a shower of Irish threats and curses. 
Being in for it, Garfield awaited his approach, leaning 
against the gate with seeming coolness, replying not a 
word. When the enraged man had approached within a 
few feet, the youth, in a commanding voice and manner, 
ordered him to halt then and there, on peril of being 
instantly awfully whipped. The audacity of taking the 
lock, the coolness and authority of this command, the 
height of the young man, looming on the amazed sight 
of the enemy, arrested his approach, and he contented 
himself with announcing certain punishment for any 
future outrage of the kind, and the boats passed. The 
general admits that his conduct in the first instance was 
the rashest folly, and in disregard of duty. In the 
second, it seemed the best way out of a difficulty. He 
was but sixteen. 

Garfield himself attributes his early abandonment of 
the canal and the change of his cherished plans to a 
combination of circumstances, which, though more nu- 
merous, resolve themselves to two — his mother and the 
ague. The memory of his tributes to Neptune in the 
muddy waters of the canal lingered in his boyish mind,, 
with the refrain, "It might have been." He had taken 
one of his many tumbles into the mud, and grasped the 
dangling end of a drag-rope which hung over the stern. 
It seems to have been in the night. Hand over hand 



BIRTH AND EARLY INXIDENTS. 33 

he sought to pull himself from the water, too deep for 
him; and hand over hand it paid out, giving him not the 
least help. His position became perilous. Himself be- 
came alarmed, as he struggled seemingly more and more 
helplessly. Finally the rope became fixed, and lent 
itself to his aid, and he drew himself on board. Curious 
to know the cause of its mysterious conduct, he found 
on examination that it lay in a loose coil, and in running 
over the edge of the boat, in his grasp, it had been drawn 
into a crack with a sort of kink, like a knot, at that point, 
which alone prevented it paying out its whole treacherous 
length. In his wet clothes he sat down in the cold of 
the empty night, to contemplate and construe the matter. 
It seemed then, to him, that there was but one chance in 
one thousand that a line thus running over the edge of 
the boat should run into a crack and knot itself; and 
that one chance had saved him. Then came the 
thought of home and mother, and how with seeming in- 
difference he had left her, and under the impression that 
he was going upon the lake. He remembered he had 
not written to her during the three months he had been 
absent, and he pondered over the pain and distress his 
misconduct had doubtless caused her; and he knew of 
the constant prayers with which her love had surrounded 
him, as with an atmosphere, from the dawn of being. He 
had, in his modest self-abnegation, never regarded him- 
self of any especial consequence in the world, and the 
rope had not now fastened itself for him on his own ac- 
count, but solely at the intercession of that mother. 
Morning light and the life of the next day came with 



34 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

new thoughts. The peril and escape of the last night 
faded to the memory of an unpleasant dream, the fig- 
ments of which lost their hold upon him. Be a sailor 
he would. Then he had broken with home; had gone 
for himself; had a right to shape his own life, provided 
he did well, worked, and earned money, and avoided 
vicious courses. But the drenching, the malaria of the 
canal, were too strong for the health and will of sixteen. 
He began to shake incontinently. He called up his will 
and determination; set, or tried to set, his teeth. How- 
ever firm his will, his body would shake and his teeth 
would chatter. The boat was on its way to Cleveland, 
and he determined there to lie off and get well. From 
Cleveland he went to Orange. He drew near the old 
home, consecrated by his mother's presence, in the eve- 
ning, and weak and shattered stole to the door. Her 
voice came from within in prayer. With uncovered head 
he bowed and listened, as the fervent prayer went on. 
He heard her pray for him, her son, away from her, and 
only in the providence of God. "Would He preserve 
him in health of body, and purity of life and soul; and 
return him to be her comfort and stay." When the voice 
ceased, he softly raised the latch and entered. Her 
prayer was answered. Not till after that time did he 
know that his going away had quite crushed her. 

He was at once prostrated with the "ague cake," as 
the hardness of the left side is popularly called. One of 
the old school IM. D.'s salivated him, and for several 
awful months he lay on the bed with a board so adjusted 
as to conduct the flow of saliva from his mouth, while 



BIRTH AND EARLY INCIDENTS. 35 

the cake was dissolving under the influence of calomel, 
as the doctor said. Nothing but the indissoluble consti- 
tution given him by his father carried him through. 
However it fared with that obdurate cake, his passion for 
the sea survived, and he intended to return to the canal. 
The wise, sagacious love of the mother won. She took 
counsel of other helps. During the dreary months of 
drool, with tender watchfulness she cared for him, with- 
out the remotest word of his immediate past. She trusted 
in his noble nature. She trusted in God that, although 
he constantly talked of carrying out his old plans, he 
would abandon them. Not for years did he know the 
agony these words cost her. She merely said, in her 
sweet, quiet way, "James, you're sick. If you return to 
the canal, I fear you will be taken down again. I have 
been thinking it over. It seems to me you had better 
go to school this spring, and then with a term in the fall, 
you may be able to teach in the winter. If you can 
teach winters, and want to go on the canal or lake sum- 
mers, you will have employment the year around." Wise 
woman that she was. 

In his broken condition it did not seem a bad plan. 
While he revolved it, she went on. "Your money is now 
all gone, but your brother Thomas and I will be able to 
raise seventeen dollars for you to start to school on, and 
you can perhaps get along after that is gone upon your 
own resources." 

He took the advice and the money, the only fund ever 
contributed by others to him, towards a collegiate edu- 
cation, and went to the Geauga seminary at Chester. 



CHAPTER II. 

EDUCATIONAL LIFE. 

A Professor.— The servant retires. — Whirligigs of Time. — Grand River 
Institute.— A call to the Ledge.— Goes as Jim Gaffil.— Returns Mr. 
Garfield.— Is Converted.— Rides Seventy Miles to see a College.— 
Hiram. — Course there. — Chooses Williams. — Experience there. — 
First in Metaphysics. — Indifference to Money. — Professor of Lan- 
guages. — President of Hiram College. — Preaches. 

I have thus rapidly passed from General Garfield's 
birth, through the mythical and legendary period of his 
life, which others have enriched with absurd fables, to 
that of history. A wider space, in which other matter of 
interest in those chrysalis years might find place would 
throw much strong light upon the structure and growth 
of his character and mind. 

The period of his school education, with the unfolding 
of his mental powers, and the development of the latent 
traits of character which go also to the formation of 
a life, are of the greatest importance to a correct 
appreciation of the matured man, but must yield to a 
more rapid treatment. At the close of the spring term 
at Chester, he had so far recovered as to enable him to 
work as a day laborer at haying and harvesting. It is 
curious the fantastic changes which time and the after- 
success of a man work in the memories of other persons 
36 



EDUCATIONAL LIFE. 37 

concerning him, and of their own agency in bringing 
him forward. At an earlier period young Garfield had 
worked for a merchant at boiling black salts. While so 
employed, the daughter of the house came home from 
the Geauga seminary, actually attended by a real pro- 
fessor, or so they called him. Young Garfield had never 
seen a specimen before. He really sat at the same 
table, and was permitted to linger in the same room in a 
remote corner, where the effulgence was not too strong, 
until nine o'clock in the evening, when the good mother, 
in a decided voice, announced that "it was time for serv- 
ants to retire." Soon after, he found himself in his little 
bedroom, up stairs, without being conscious of the details 
of the journey thither. "Servant." It was not a good 
word for the ears of even an intended sailor boy. His 
terra was quite out; the merchant sympathized with him, 
said what he might, and offered an increase of wages, 
but the servant retired at the end of the month. 

Ah, "the whirligigs of time," and the compensations 
they bring! The daughter became the wife of the won- 
derful professor, and a few brief years later, when on a 
visit to the lady mother, the three went to a reception 
tendered to the popular president of a college and elo- 
quent young senator, when the mother congratulated him 
with cordiality, and herself warmly, for once having him 
a member of her family. The servant had retired. 

And so this summer, a farmer of the neighborhood 
for whom he did yeoman's service in the harvest field at- 
tempted to defraud him of his scant wages, and was only 
foiled by the youth's spirit. He lived to speak of "Jim 



38 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD, 

Gaffil"* as one of his boys whom he had raised and 
helped forward in his day of penury. 

With the money thus earned the young man purchased 
more decent raiment. When he reached Chester for the 
fall term, he had just six cents, and these he cast into 
the contribution box on the ensuing Sunday at church, 
and so he resumed his education. 

In the neighborhood of the school there was a large 
two-story house in the course of construction; to the 
master builder he applied for work, as he had an apti- 
tude for the use of tools, and was familiar with a jack- 
plane and jointer. He secured the job of dressing 
"clap-boards" for the weather boarding at two cents 
each, and one vacation day he dressed fifty, the first 
time in his life that he received a full dollar for a day's 
work. He made his way through easily, and in the au- 
tumn he received the examiner's certificate as a teacher. 
When the call came to "the Ledge," (a neighborhood in 
Orange), in his honest judgment of himself, he shrank 
from undertaking the school. In his doubt, he applied 
to his Uncle Boynton. After a moment's thought, he 
replied, "Take it. You will go as 'Jim Gafiilj' you must 
come back 'Mr. Garfield,' " and he did. 

That winter Father Lillie, a Disciple preacher of local 
fame, held a protracted meeting in the neighborhood, 
and yielding his assent to the faith of his ever-hopeful 
mother, he united with her church organization, and this 
severed the last strand of the cord which bound him to 
the dream of the ocean. All these it took — imminent 

* The popular pronunciation at tb.e time in Orange. 



EDUCATIONAL LIFE. 39 

peril of death, illness, devoted love of motner, her 
prayers and intercessions, an abiding thirst for knowl- 
edge newly awakened, his conversion and union with 
the church. The center of them all was the sweet, 
beaming, tender, lovely face of his mother, the light 
from which brought out all the alluring or repulsive fea- 
tures of the other. 

Not many years since in speaking of these trials and 
temptations of his early years^ he said, half regretfully, 
"But even now, at times, the old feeling (the longing for 
the sea) comes back;" and walking across the room, he 
turned with a flashing eye, "I tell you, I would rather 
now command a fleet in a great naval battle than do 
anything else on this earth. The sight of a ship often 
fills me with a strange fascination; and when upon 
the water, and my fellow-landsmen are in the agonies 
of sea-sickness, I am as tranquil as when walking the 
land, in the serenest weather." But the sea lost her 
lover. 

At the close of his school on "the Ledge," he went 
with his mother to visit a brother of hers, in the south 
part of the State. Save on the canal, this was his longest 
journey and made on the railroad, his first ride on the 
cars. They stopped at Columbus, where Mr. Kent, the 
representative of Geauga, showed them much attention, 
and young Garfield saw the wonders of that capital. At 
Blue Rock an unfortunate school-master had just been 
disciplined by the scholars of one of the districts and 
dismissed, and he was induced to take them in hand for 
two months, and did. During the time he rode on 



40 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

horsebacK seventy miles to Athens to see a real college, 
the first he had ever seen. 

What a strong light this incident throws on the uncon- 
scious working and influence of the real forces of the 
young man's mind ! 

The longings of his strong and still undeveloped na- 
ture were in a new direction. It was no longer the sea, 
the remote shores of old lands, the lonely islands, and 
pictured archipelagoes, but the cloisters of learning, its 
abode. The walls and roof of the mere edifice appealed 
to an imagination that seems early to have exercised a 
strong influence over him. He was now to turn all 
the energies with which he was so abundantly en- 
dowed, in the new direction. The little seminary of 
Chester, to which he returned from Blue Rock, was suf- 
ficient for the present. This must have been the summer 
of 1850. The ensuing winter he taught school again; 
thus enlarging his own powers and thoroughness of acqui- 
sition. An ingenious mind never acquires so surely as 
where it masters for the purpose of imparting. A man 
must find his learning so roomy that he can turn in it, 
and still find it at his hand. A man's soul must be large 
enough to turn round in, or it cannot be much of a soul. 

The story of this school life has been told with fair 
amplitude in history and fiction. Rich and useful as it 
is, my purpose is more to help finish out the artist's tran- 
script of the noble head and face, to furnish forth the 
complete idea of the man, than to tell a tale, however 
graphic, of the details of a very interesting career. — to 
show, if I may, what he was and is, rather than what he 



EDUCATIONAL LIFE. 4^ 

said and did. There is such incompleteness in a life, 
running at full tide like a river on whose banks you stand, 
that even this is scarcely possible. At mid career, per- 
haps, one can at best furnish a conception of what a man 
seems, rather than what he really is. That can possibly 
only be known when his years are completed. 

Some inteUigent, hard-working farmers, caught up and 
molded into unity of sentiment by the remarkable relig- 
ious movement in which Alexander Campbell was a 
leader — a movement hardly possible save amid a pio- 
neer people, who are remitted somewhat to the primary 
conditions of life, which seem to place them nearer na- 
ture and God — had worked into accomplishment their 
idea of an institute of learning, needed for the education 
of their own youth. They had found in the scriptures, 
pure and simple, not only an abundant formula of faith, 
but a code for church government as well. They knew 
it was written in an original language, and, among other 
things to be provided for, was a means of the thorough 
mastery of this and the Latin tongue. This was a school 
much in advance of Chester; it was the central literary 
light of the new, or the re-organization of primitive Chris- 
tianity, and to this the young scholar would necessarily 
make his way. It was an event in the history of Hiram 
rather than in that of Garfield, when he entered her new 
fresh halls and rooms. The incidents of school life, 
which with the passage of time were to become tradi- 
tions, were yet to occur. With cravings sharpened, facul- 
ties still wholly immature, broadened and strengthened 
at Chester, and a capacity for study greatly enlarged, the 



42 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

large-headed, broad-shouldered, deep-chested young 
giant, with his surplus of life, finding vent in loud 
gushes of laughter, and the thousand ways in which an 
overtlood of young male animal vitality finds innocent 
outlets, he concentrated his energies on Greek and Latin. 
One can almost fancy that a thrill from the grasp of his 
warm, strong hand, must have run back to the ashes of 
the old writers, whose thoughts he was to master, with 
their language. Two years at Hiram and he was largely 
the best scholar she had, and he became the standard by 
which to measure her future prodigies. We are not toW 
what were his methods and peculiarities of study. We 
know very well that he had no peculiarities. A direct 
nature of his breadth and force can never become eccen- 
tric, could hardly be otherwise peculiar. He was differ- 
ent from other young men rather in quality and quantity. 
He exhausted Hiram and needed more. He wrote to 
Yale, Williams, and Mr. Campbell's young college at 
Bethany, gave a modest account of his acquisitions, and 
wished to know what time it would require in their 
classes to complete the university course. They sever- 
ally answered, two years. 

Singularly enough, he turned from Bethany. There 
was a leaning in it toward slavery, by which it was sur- 
rounded. It was less thorough. The youth who would 
grow up to a sailor, possibly an admiral, from the tow-path 
of a canal, would be content with nothing less than the 
most complete. Beside, he was quick enough to see 
that his religious association was a little exclusive, though 
confessedly as broad as the scheme of salvation, and he 



EDUCATIONAL LIFE. 



43 



wished to see and mix with a body more cosmopohtan, — 
preferred the older and more advanced East. "If you 
come here, we shall be glad to do what we can for you," 
was the conclusion of President Hopkins' letter from 
Williams. There was a little warmth, sympathy in these 
words that touched a nature so responsive, and this de- 
cided that Williams and not Yale should graduate him. 
Through the discovery of life insurance the young student 
raised the necessary means, on a policy he secured on his 
own life, which was a good risk, and the summer of 1854, 
in his twenty-third year, saw him in the junior class of 
Williams. 

At Williams, the air was warm and close with the styles, 
fashions, and conventionaUsms, — stifling, with the artifi- 
cialities and refinements of eastern life. A young man, the 
product of a city, can never apprehend the emotions and 
confusions experienced by the country-bred youth who 
finds himself suddenly in their midst. He is aft aid of a 
great town, and patronizes a third-rate hotel rather than 
face the monsters of a first. It is not in nature that the 
elegant students from the wealthy homes of the East 
should not note and comment upon the western speci- 
men. Let it not be supposed that the young athlete, on 
whom canal water made little impression, was impervious 
to the glances that ran him over or took him in. He was 
the most sensitive of mortals. 

The youth who, abashed by the manner of a drunken 
brute, went from the lake to the tow-path, had but the 
humblest conception of himself. What mattered it 
though he was intellectually a giant, and a genius so 



44 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

large and general that it had no special tendency, and 
therefore not recognized as genius, — that his intellect had 
the fashion of Cicero, of Demosthenes, his imagination 
was Athenian, his thought moulded and polished by 
Virgil and the classics? He knew he was rural. He 
thought he might be rustic. He could see that he still 
looked unripe. The full blood was all too near the thin, 
fine-fibred skin of the face, and that was too broad. He 
never could see why that head, disproportionately large 
even for those shoulders and chest, need be quite so big, 
light as he carried it. He had not thought much of his 
dress. Now it was impressed upon him that his coat was 
of Hiram. His boots were Hiramy, and so were his 
pantaloons. His hat he purchased in Ravenna, but was 
not Williams fashion. Why had he not gone to Bethany ? 
Alas ! it is both Darwinian and Taineian that man is the 
servant of his environments, and more than one man has 
been made unhappy by his coat. Surely there are crosses 
enough without putting a man at feud and disadvantage 
by his garments. Better that he be without. The 
loftiest ambition, the highest soul has its weaknesses. 
Young Garfield's nature was roomy enough to absorb 
Williams, faculty and students, and his magnetism made 
them his own. They and he forget the lack of grace in 
his dress in his other abundant graces, and he wore his 
garments as he might. He kept his place in his class to 
the close. 

At the end of two years he received the award for 
metaphysics, the best honor of Williams. Metaphysics ! 
who would have suspected that? Who would have sup- 



EDUCATIONAL LIFE. 45 

posed that the kind of power and grasp that clutches the 
particles of the spirit of things, and follows filmy specula- 
tion to shadowless, atomless conclusions in the abstract, 
and so sets Williams wondering, were his ? " Metaphysics, 
after all, may be a specialty with Mr. Garfield." Yes, I 
have observed that the subject in hand with him, what- 
ever it is, becomes a specialty. 

jNIention has been made of the slenderness of his means 
and meagreness of compensation he earned, where it 
seemed to reflect light on his character. Had I ever 
heard of his higgling over the price of a Barlow-knife, or 
woodchuck-skin whip-lash, I should mention the oft-re- 
peated scantiness of his expenditures, and the sum total 
of his debt when he took metaphysical leave of Williams. 
It might then help to a better understanding of the man. 
Great men may be small in money matters ; when they 
are, it may as well be known. It helps to equalize great 
and common men. Mr. Garfield seems rather of the 
temper of the knight who twisted off an unweighed quan- 
tity of his golden chain, and threw it in silent disdain to 
the churl who asked wages for hospitality. 

On his return to Ohio he was honored with the post 
of languages in the Hiram institute. The next year he 
became its president. As an instructor, he was famous, 
so far as such a post can confer distinction. Doubtless 
there are minds gifted with a special aptitude for instruct- 
ing. It was now thought this was his gift. He never 
had any of the pedagogue. He never would have real- 
ized any man's idea, save his own, of a professor. I 
doubt whether there was any one or two things that 



46 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

peculiarly fitted him for teaching. I think there are few- 
things to which, if he turned and concentrated himself, 
that he would not do about as well as the best in that 
line, and shortly. It is said that Greek and Latin, in his 
mouth, ceased to be dead languages, in a manner. That 
the secrets of most of the sciences revealed themselves 
to him, and so were freely translated. The power lay in 
the warmth and magnetism of his nature. A gift to ani- 
mate things, make them move and take color. In some 
sense a born orator, his rank as such I do not speak of. 
His mastery of language gave him a copious vocabulary. 
He was full of enthusiasm. Anything which engaged 
his attention five minutes awakened it. Never was there 
such talkings up of lessons as his; nor had any studies 
ever before seemed so attractive to the pupils. They 
saw them through his medium, which was warmth as 
well as light. 

He was born — had all his days save his Williams 
days — lived at the heart-beat of the common people, and 
knew exactly the influences which control them, and that 
they measure everything by the money standard of cost, 
and what could be got for it in cash. He knew that 
they even estimated him by the money he could earn at 
teaching, and hence the eagerness to know the money 
cost of his education. A young farmer, in the emulation 
which the young professor's name produced, would se- 
cure a quarter in the institute, and became charmed at 
the world of letters opened to him. His father would 
refuse, hesitate, was seen and talked with by the young 
president, who made it clear, to even his apprehension, 



EDUCATIONAL LIFE. 47 

that a more thorougli education enhanced the cash value 
of the youth. Wou'.d it have been better on the whole 
that Garfield had remained a college professor or presi- 
dent? It is pretty certain he would not long have 
remained at Hiram. His proportions were not suited 
to that, and he would have grown much faster else- 
where. Would it have been better if his plans of life 
had embraced the idea of adhering to some one thing ? 
Was he incapable of that? Is here the weakness in him? 
Or is there too much of him or of something, — too 
much or too little ? 

The years of his teaching coincide with the years of 
his preaching. Whatever may have been the effect on 
others, which must have been salutary, and although it 
was a useful training-school to the young men, the draw- 
back — less hurtful to him than to most — is the half-odium 
attaching to an ex-clergyman. Most of the caUings a 
man may turn from to others, without a shadow of dis- 
credit. The clerical is not one of them. He was at the 
most a lay-preacher. Under the Disciple rule any brother 
may offer his views. Of all peoples they were most 
given to discussions, public, private, and all the time; of 
reading, discussing, and expounding the Scriptures. A 
young man of Garfield's gifts and temperament, dealing 
with Scripture texts and lessons, would become a public 
speaker on the themes of such universal interest. Of 
course he excelled. I have no doubt he liked to preach. 
All true artists love to practice their art. For a real born 
speaker, with warmth of temperament and imagination, 
the exercise of his gift has a great charm. To feel every 



48 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

fibre alive and tremulous with a theme, and rise and 
launch himself with fearless confidence on speech, "wreak 
himself on expression," kindle and glow, lift the audi- 
ence and be lifted till the sentiment and emotion of all 
become one, and his the utterance of it, give to the 
speaker a rare delight. The pleasurable glow remains 
though the physical frame may become exhausted. Gar- 
field had no call to preach; felt none. Had none of 
the intense religious enthusiasm that has made so many 
smaller men famous. He had natural enthusiasm, 
warmth, sympathy, sensibility, language, rare powers of 
speech, — had faith. He lacked the kindling inspiration 
of an intense evangelical spirit that hears the voice of 
the strong necessities of its own nature. He was never 
set apart for the ministry of the word by the authority of 
his people. Though he spoke often, in many places, 
was famous among his people, who have produced so 
many able and some widely-famous ministers, few of 
whom have much of the clergyman about them. Ear- 
nest, zealous, able, eloquent Christian teachers are they, 
with a very small modicum of the parson. Perhaps had 
Garfield remained a college professor or president he 
would have continued to preach, with what success is not 
difficult to forecast. In the superabundance of him he 
did other things beside. Among them, it is even said 
that in 1858-59 he saved some money, which was a 
thing he would be less likely to succeed in than in any 
other field of human enterprise that occurs to me. A 
weakness in this matter is doubtless amiable; it is a 
great personal inconvenience, and not by any means 



EDUCATIONAL LIFE. 49 

necessarily allied to excellence of mind, character, or 
morals. Money values are not to be ruled out as vulgar 
or vicious. They are the only measures of property, 
and should be kept in their place. To estimate a man 
by his worth in money provokes a guffaw of the gods. 
Whatever he may have done in the way of this acquisi- 
tion, he made many political anti-slavery speeches. Here 
was a field broad and standing thick with material, the 
use of which could not fail to be most effective in his 
hands. Since the pre-revolutionary period no cause has 
done so much for American oratory, as we still miscall 
our public speaking. The other two together, temper- 
ance and woman's rights, save with the sex, do not 
approach it. Most of the good platform speakers of 
middle life of the North were formed in this school, so 
nearly allied to the more vulgar and very useful political 
speaking common to all parts of the country. 



CHAPTER III. 

WAR EXPERIENCES. 

Elected to the Senate.— Studies Law.— Plans of Life.— .Approach and 
Preparation for the War.— General Cox.— James Monroe.— Lieuten- 
ant Colonel Forty-second Regiment.— General BuelL— Interview with 
Him.— Plans Mill Creek Campaign.— Finds Humphrey Marshall.— 
Battle.— Humphrey Hies to Pound Gap.— The Campaign.- Steers 
the Sandy Vallev up the Big Sandy.— At the Battle of Shiloh.— Wash- 
ington.— Fitz John Porter's Trial.— Chief of Staff in Army of the 
Cumberland.— Rosecrans.— Overrules the Seventeen Generals.— Tul- 
lahoma.—Chickamauga.— Heroism on the Field.— Major General.- 
Plan to Supersede Lincoln.— The Patriot Boy.— Lincoln Urges Him 
to Enter Congress. 

With his great personal popularity Mr. Garfield could 
net well have avoided politics and becoming ofificially a 
public man. I don't think he tried. He must have had 
a relish for affairs. I don't see how, with his robust vital- 
ity and abounding animal life, he could well have long 
lived in a college cloister. He was elected to the Ohio 
Senate in the autumn of 1S59, and was then twenty-eight. 
This indicates a possible change in the plans of life. So 
earnest and thoughtful a man had plans and programmes, 
had long and carefully arranged and adhered to sys- 
tem for the discharge of his duties and avocations. Such 
men by such means conquer time and win leisure. There 
is one other evidence of this change of plan. In the 
same autumn he entered his name as a student-at-law in 



50 



WAR EXPERIENCES. 5 I 

the office of Messrs. Williamson & Riddle, of Cleveland, 
and had full five minutes' conversation with the junior as 
to the books and course of reading, from whose hand he 
subsequently received a paper that he had diligently 
studied that science two years, under whose instruction 
was omitted, and was admitted to the bar by the supreme 
court at Columbus. He doubtless then intended, as he 
has several times since, to turn himself to the practice of 
law. Of the cause which could have led to this, specu- 
lation would be useless. We have a catalogue of the 
reasons which turned him from the sea, though they did 
not banish the viking from his heart. Less cogent rea- 
sons, and perhaps fewer in number, may have been am- 
ple to lead to change of the plans of life. 

He was then a member of the Ohio senate, and quite 
every day from that to the present has been spent in the 
public service. His figure on the public stage soon be- 
came conspicuous. The character of his services and 
the manner in which he has rendered them early called 
the public attention to him. As his period of service 
lengthened, his fame broadened; the impressions he pro- 
duced deepened. As we study and contemplate him he 
grows upon us. 

Perhaps I might leave him here. His career is matter 
of already written history. Its muse will assuredly care 
for him. This sketch is not written for him or his friends, 
nor at their dictation. I have undertaken to furnish some 
sketches of many men well known to me, though less 
known to fame than he, for a domestic history. I must 
in the fulfillment of this undertaking so far glance at the 



52 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

incidents of these later years, or of some of them, as to 
suggest the lights and shades they throw upon him, to 
show the effect they have produced, the changes they 
have wrought in the man himself, and help as I may to 
form an estimate of him. 

It will be remembered that Garfield entered the Ohio 
senate in 1S59, when the leaders of slavery had so far 
changed the forms of resistance to the exercise of their 
constitutional rights by theNorthern people, that the con- 
test would inevitably escape from the forms of political 
action and assume those of war. It cannot be said that 
the North were not amply warned in time. But hardly a 
man of that region, a year later, believed the South meant 
an actual collision of arms. It may be that it was as 
well that the North was incapable of being thus alarmed. 
The parties were mutually deceived. The South was in 
earnest, but, in turn, believed that war, inevitable and 
bloody, would not ensue, for it was assured that the farm- 
ers, mechanics, traders, and manufacturers would not 
attempt to enforce the rights and laws of the Nation 
against them. The South was more foolhardy than the 
North supposed; the North less timid and pusillanimous 
than the South believed. Curious it now seems, that the 
peoples of one blood, language, laws, and actual govern- 
ment, who had lived, associated, traded, and intermarried, 
occupied the same lands, and jointly carried on the same 
political institutions, could be so divided by the single 
thing of slavery, that they could have so misunderstood 
each other. So it was. The conflict was rapidly ap- 
proaching. The domestic agitations and political con- 



WAR EXPERIENCES. 53 

vulsions which must precede a contest so great and near, 
were shaking and shaping the minds and actions of the 
peoples of the two sections, and, unconsciously on the 
part of the North, conducting them to the margin of the 
inevitable conflict. These interests and agitations super- 
seded the ordinary themes and interests of legislation 
and discussion. It was the day for the advent of large- 
brained, warm-natured men of profound convictions, 
under the passionate impulses of the fiery blood, beating 
out the fullest pulse of youth. In a way, Garfield's con- 
stitutional make, the source from which he sprang, the 
Ufe he had lived, the training and discipline he had gone 
through with, fitted him admirably for the important part 
he performed in preparing Ohio for the contest, and 
leading her side by side with the more advanced Northern 
States into it, and preparing himself and fellows for their 
own individual shares in it. It is still strange how that 
war fought itself, and though utterly unprepared with 
materials, soldiers, and commanders, perhaps the most 
surprising thing, after all, was the admirable and thorough 
preparation of the people themselves for the war, amazed 
as they were when it broke upon them. The causes 
which led to it worked this fitting — the planters, nursers 
and growers of the ideas, the germinal elements which 
produced the Northern half of these fashioning causes, 
were older than Garfield. He and the men of his gen- 
eration, the young, fiery orators, who, under the impetus 
of older forces and movements, were but to shape the 
things at the last moments ere the conflict, were to 
arouse, marshal, and lead the masses into the field, trans- 



54 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

form and be transformed into soldiers and commanders. 
His share of this work he did faithfully and well. When 
has he shirked or been wanting? He became almost at 
once the foremost in it. That, too, is quite his way. 
Who would expect him long to lag in rear of the most 
advanced, and that not wholly from emulation, — he has 
given little evidence of great personal ambition, — as from 
the qualities and forces of his nature, which, when 
turned in a given direction, take him as far as men can 
go, and greatly in advance of all save the very few? 
With these his race is probably yet to be run. The man's 
nature makes it inevitable. Seemingly, he leaves himself 
in the hands of events. 

No quotation I could make from any speech of the 
several effective ones delivered by Mr. Garfield in the 
Ohio senate would do them or him justice. Quotations 
are always unjust. Of his immediate associates, J. D. 
Cox, of Trumbull county, and James Monroe, of Lorain 
county, then in the senate, were his most efficient co- 
workers. I make no comparisons of these men, nor shall 
I contrast Mr. Garfield with any. It is probable that with 
Cox was he the more intimate. When it became probable 
to these young men that a conflict of arms would ensue, 
each knew that he should go to the field, each felt that 
he would be called on to lead others. However that 
might be, each would be there to meet whatever foe he 
might find. They at once applied themselves to study 
the art of war. Both had read Cresar, were familiar with 
the history of modern campaigning. They now took the 
subject up as an elementary study. Garfield, as we know 



WAR EXPERIENXES. 55 

from the natural logical thoroughness of his mind, began 
at the soldier's tow-path. Cox showed all through the war 
his natural aptitude, and the helps he drew from study 
never remitted. 

Whatever may be said of the genius, or talent, or both, 
necessary to fit forth a great military leader, the glitter 
and dazzle, the pomp and splendor, which ever attend 
the movements and encounters of men in arms, throw 
so much glamour over the names of successful generals 
that their essential merits are lost sight of The real 
nature and quality of the faculties, by the possession and 
exercise of which men succeed as generals, are, after all, a 
little dubious. The war showed that there was an abund- 
ance of this talent among us, and of excellent quality. 
It is useful in war, itself the most absurdly useless of 
human avocations. Barbarians and savages have it, and 
doubtless it is developed early in men. Men succeed 
early in life as commanders, and with us men who failed 
in everything else, before and after the war, did well as 
subordinate commanders, and may have had the ability 
to conduct a campaign. 

At the start, Cox received the first command. The 
early three months' regiments were permitted to elect 
their field-officers. Upon the organization of the Seventh, 
Garfield was at Cleveland, and at Camp Taylor, and was, 
perhaps, willing to have been its colonel. The push- 
ing, dashing Tyler carried off that honor. The first of 
his exploits was to sit down to breakfast with the boys 
one morning, at Cross Lanes, in the enemy's country, 
never thinking that chaps unmannerly enough to break 



56 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

out of the Union would break in on a colonel at his 
breakfast, but they did, and this broke up the Seventh. 
During the summer, Garfield, who began as lieutenant- 
colonel, was in command of the Forty-second at Camp 
Chase, and stamped himself upon it in a month. He 
was teacher, professor, and colonel in one. On the fif- 
teenth of December, in obedience to an order from Gen- 
eral Buell, commanding the department of the Ohio, the 
Forty-second was sent to Cattlettsburgh, Kentucky, and 
its colonel proceeded to headquarters at Louisville. 
The preparations and expectations, the longings, possi- 
ble doubtings of the eager, anxious months were to be 
brought to the test of actual war. 

What a picture the interview of Buell and Garfield 
would make in the hands of an artist ! Buell, the most 
accomplished military scholar and critic of the old army, 
and the most unpopular as well as one of the most deserv- 
ing generals of volunteers of the war, astute, silent, cold. 
Garfield, with his glowing thirty years and splendid 
fisure, made to fill and set off the simple blue uniform, 
with his massive head well borne, and eager, flushing 
face, and bringing the warm atmosphere of his generous 
nature to confront his questioning and undetermined 
fate. A keen, sharp, searching glance, with a few cold, 
unconnected questions greeted him. Humphrey Mar- 
shall was moving down the valley of the Big Sandy, 
threatening eastern Kentucky. ZoUicoffer was on the 
way from Cumberland gap, towards Mill Spring. In con- 
cise words, as if to one skilled in military technics, the 
general, with a map before him, pointed out the position 



WAR EXPERIENCES. 57 

and strength of Marshall, the locations of the Union 
forces, the topography of the country, and lifting his cold 
eyes to the face of the silent listener, said, "If you were 
in command of this sub-district what would you do? 
Report your answer here at nine o'clock to-morrow morn- 
ing." The colonel, with a silent bow, departed. Day- 
light the next morning found him with a sketch of the pro- 
posed campaign still incomplete. At nine sharp he laid 
it before his commander. The skilled eye mastered it 
in a minute. He issued to its author an order, creating 
the Eighteenth brigade of the army of the Cumberland, 
and assigned Colonel Garfield to the command. After 
directing the process of embodying the troops, came this 
sentence, brief enough for the soul of wit: 

"Then proceed, with the least possible delay, to the 
mouth of the Sandy, and move with the force in that 
vicinity up that river, and drive the enemy back or cut 
him off." Never was order more literally executed, or 
with greater prompitude. Buell seemingly risked much 
on the accuracy of his judgment. Garfield, who had 
never seen an enemy or heard a musket fired in action, 
suddenly found himself in command of four regiments 
of infantry and eight companies of cavalry, charged with 
the duty of driving from his native State the reputedly 
ablest of its officers not educated to war, whom Kentucky 
had given to the rebellion, who commanded about five 
thousand men, and could choose his own position. He 
was at Paintville, sixty miles up the Sandy, was expected 
ultimately to unite with Zollicoffer, advance to Lexing- 
ton, and establish the rebel provisional government in the 



58 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

State. He was a man of great intellectual abilities, and 
.famous for having led the Kentuckians in the charge at 
Buena Vista. The roads were horrible, the time mid- 
winter, and the rains incessant. 

Before nightfall of the ninth of January, 1862, Gar- 
field had, at the head of fifteen hundred men, driven in 
the enemy's pickets between Abbott's and Middle creeks. 
He dispatched orders to his reserves at Paintville, twenty 
miles away, less than one thousand strong, and bivouacked 
in the pitiless rain, to await morning and the struggle. 
Wrapped in his heavy cloak, with his men about him, on 
the edge of unknown battle, he lay. There was plenty 
of time to think, — to think of everything. How the 
mind, armed with incredible flight in such a supreme 
moment, will flash the world around! Back over all his 
life — the canal, his boyhood, trivial things, his mother, 
old Williams ; his wife and babies, and then the Hiram 
Eclectic boys, a full company of whom were then near 
him, because he was there. They had followed him. 
He knew their fathers and mothers. They had, in a 
way, put them into his hands, and he had brought them 
here. Somewhere near lay the enemy, of known superior 
strength. Where should he find him? At odds, in 
position as in numbers, he must exj^ect. His main force, 
the Fortieth, the Forty-second, had never faced an enemy. 
How would they behave? And then he turned to him- 
self to question— question his innermost self — for weak 
places, lingering, unexpectedly mayhap, in spirit, perhaps 
in mere nerve, in some portion of his body, who can 
tell where may be a treacherous weakness ? Then his 



WAR EXPERIENCES. 59 

thoughts wandered away to things he had always revered. 
And then came the drowsy numbness of sleep, with a 
sense of the nearness, the presence of the dear ones in 
his precious, peaceful home. 

After all, it was not so easy to find General Humphrey 
Marshall. Not on Abbott's creek at all. He was so 
near, his foe could feel his presence; had found his 
cavalry and artillery. Where was Marshall's self and his 
army? Garfield could almost hear him breathe. What 
a day of hunt that was ! He was certainly on Abbott's 
creek; and Garfield would strike Middle creek, and so 
get in his rear. In executing this movement, he found 
the enemy perked up on the side of a ragged, wooded 
hill, as if to be up out of danger. In fact, he was too 
much up to defend himself. At about four p. m. a 
rattling fire began — about as much as could be got out 
of one thousand muskets that attacked on one side, and 
three thousand on the other. Never was there such a 
banging as the rebels made. They, too, were raw, and 
firing down a steep hill. On level ground raw troops fire 
too high, and wound the clouds, if in range. The 
rebels could not get down to our boys, who, under cover 
of the trees, kept onward and upward. There were too 
many rebels, for the trees and logs would not cover a fifth 
of the poor fellows. 

Though an up-hill business, the Union soldiers did 
not aim too high, and they were pushing on up to see 
Avhere they hit. Finally a rebel reinforcement came up 
over the crest, and the idea seemed to strike them to 
make a rush down and sweep the Union line — thin as a 



6o LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

skirmish-line — out. At this instant Union Colonel Mon- 
roe and his Kentuckians — four or five hundred — got up 
so as to get in a very unpleasant enfilading fire, when 
round a curve in the road came Colonel Sheldon, with 
his one thousand from Paintville, through twenty miles 
of mud. Round they came, in the rear of Garfield's 
little handful of reserves, and gave a loud cheer. The 
reserves took it up and sent it to the struggling boys on 
the side-hill, who sent it up to Humphrey Marshall. 
Sheldon threw his men in line, and though the ground 
was miry, they started on a double-quick. Too late. 
That shout and the sight of the shouters did the rest of 
Humphrey's business. The shoutees did not wait for 
shot, or anything worse than noise, but turned and 
scrambled up hill, followed by the Ohio boys. Night 
came down ; the soldiers gathered up their wounded, 
and the whole force concentrated on a good position, — 
pickets thrown out, and preparations made for a final 
struggle next day. 

Shortly after dark a bright light blazed up behind the 
hill of battle. The Union soldiers beheld it with wonder. 
It was Humphrey Marshall's last fire. In it he consumed 
every possible thing that might hinder flight or be of 
value to his foe, and by the light he hied him away to 
Pound Gap. 

In reading the histories of the numerous generals on 
both sides of the war, the greatest stress is laid upon the fact 
whether a given man has been tried by the only reliable 
test — a separate, independent command. If he had not, 
or failed under it, his fame had yet a flaw. Garfield met 



WAR EXPERIENCES. 6z 

this at his entrance on the field. I never attempted but 
once an opinion on the movements of our army. I saw 
the flight from the first battle of Bull Run, and I ven- 
tured to suggest that the movement was in the wrong di- 
rection, and, as I remember, not executed with military 
precision. For this criticism I was promptly hanged, 
burned, and drowned — in effigy. I venture nothing on 
the merit of the campaign. Military writers have awarded 
it high praise. Its fault was the temerity of the attack, 
The commander had no knowledge of the character and 
force and commander opposed to him, save what his un- 
practiced eye could hastily catch when in a possibly too 
dangerous neighborhood. Probably the disposition made 
by Marshall might have revealed all that it was necessary 
to know, but I have no doubt he would have been at- 
tacked under almost any circumstances. Garfield was. 
capable of extraordinary personal exertions, and the 
weight of his force — in fighting, pluck, and tnoj-ale — was 
perhaps never surpassed by men of their experience. 
His own subsequent criticism of his conduct was that, 
the attack was rash in the extreme. "As it was, having, 
gone into the army with the notion that fighting was our 
business, I didn't know any better." The general plan of 
the campaign must have been based on true military 
principles, for it was approved by Buell. 

I have almost exceeded my limits. This hasty outline 
must shrink to a mere mention of incidents most useful 
to my purpose. Garfield received reinforcements, and 
held the conquered territory for a time. Rations grew 
scarce, and the only source of supply was from the mouth. 



62 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

of the Big Sandy, which the long continued winter rains 
in that mountain region had swollen to an unnavigable 
torrent, up which a salmon could hardly make his way. 
The colonel was at the mouth. He had a cargo of pro- 
visions placed in the little stern-wheel, "Sandy Valley," 
and ordered it to start up. The captain refused. No 
craft could be found to attempt it. The river was sixty 
feet deep; had risen almost to the tree-tops along its 
wooded banks. Garfield ordered the captain and crew 
on board, stationed a plucky officer on deck over the 
captain, and himself took the wheel. Steering a canal- 
boat had not been wholly in vain. The captain protested; 
declared that no such craft could stem such a down- 
sweeping tide. The new helmsman had the steam turned 
on, and headed the shuddering little craft up-stream. 
With her greatest power she could not make three miles 
an hour. Night came. The captain implored that the 
frightened thing might be tied up, but she was kept head- 
up, and the determined colonel kept the wheel. She 
plunged her nose into the bank past digging out. Colo- 
nel Garfield manned a boat, pushed across the stream, 
extemporized a windlass, and with a Une pulled her out, 
and sent her on up to his hungry boys. He started on 
Saturday. All that day and night, Sunday and Sunday 
night, and at nine o'clock Monday morning they reached 
the camp. A tumult of cheers welcomed him. Spite of 
military rule, the young commander barely escaped being 
carried to headquarters on the shoulders of his soldiers. 
Of the whole time in climbing the Big Sandy, he had 
been absent from the wheel but eight hours. 



WAR EXPERIENCES. 63 

He was formed for a soldier's idol. 

The Big Sandy campaign could have no wide signifi- 
cance, save on the fortunes of the two commanders. 
Humphrey Marshall disappeared in a shower of ridicule 
and sarcasm from both sides. The attention of the 
country was for a day concentrated on the young man 
who had shown such dashing qualities. He was made a 
brigadier-general, to date from January loth, and ordered 
to report to General Buell. The separation from the 
Forty-second was a real affliction to both. His new com- 
mand was two Ohio and two Indiana regiments; nor did 
the fortunes of war ever again place his old regiment 
under his command or in his presence. 

He was enabled to get into the second day's battle 
at Pittsburg Landing. He had his share in the tedious 
siege of Corinth, and finally advanced to Huntsville, 
where he was at the close of that campaign. He was 
placed at the head of the court-martial on General Tur- 
chin, which developed his qualities and fine ability in new 
directions. The old malarial influences, the result of his 
early campaign on the canal, quickened by the climate of 
the South, brought a vigorous return of the old foe, and 
late in the summer he was obliged to return home. He 
was ordered to reheve General Morgan on Cumberland 
Gap, but was still in the clutch of the ague when he was 
directed to report at Washington as soon as health per- 
mitted. The eye of the secretary of war had been on 
him from his first appearance in the army. His knowl- 
edge of law, the ability in the Turchin case, his admir- 
able judgment on all occasions, and his ardent patriotism 



64 LIFE OF JAMES A. GAKHELU. 

induced Mr. Stanton to place his name among the first 
of the court for the trial of Fitz-John Porter. The his- 
tory of that famous trial is to be re-written, with what re- 
sult is unknown. It is known that General Garfield then 
had no doubt of his guilt. He is not one to make or 
change his opinions lightly. In him, however, the moral 
qualities which produce a firm, quick sense of justice 
are strong and active. 

During this long trial he became intimate with General 
Hunter, the president, who desired to have him in the 
contemplated campaign in South Carolina ; and, with his 
nitensified anti-slavery sentiinents, the assignment to this 
field was gratifying to the young general. Meantime was 
fought the sanguinary battle of Stone River. Gerache, 
the chief-of-staff of the commanding general, was slain, 
and Garfield, appointed to the vacant post, was sent to 
Rosecrans, in January, 1863. 

This commander, in some respects the most brilliant 
general of the army, was the poorest judge of men; and 
though one of the best-hearted, he had one of the most 
unaccommodating of tempers, especially in his dealings 
with the powers at Washington. His deficiencies were 
admirably supplied by his new chief-of-staff. There was 
perhaps not a prominent general in the army who could 
not have been supplemented in the same way. The 
quick eye of the new chief saw the defects in the organ- 
ization of the army. These could be measurably sup- 
plied. He saw the incapacity of the wing commanders, 
A. M. McCook and T. L. Crittenden, and promptly 
recommended their removal. The general could not 



WAR EXPERIENCES. 65 

injure "two such good fellows." The inefficiency of 
McCook lost the first day at Stone River. They went 
on to Chickamauga, where he ruined the field. Garfield 
would have supplied their places with McDowell and 
Buell. His arrival at headquarters was about the begin- 
ning of the bitter, acrimonious correspondence between 
the general of the army and the war office, which laid 
the foundation for his being relieved from the command 
under a cloud. Garfield found the army at Murfrees- 
boro', and here it lay, spite of the urgency, the importu- 
nity, the almost command of the secretary of war for 
action, till the twenty-fourth of June, in the presence of 
Bragg. Rosecrans needed reinforcements, material sup- 
plies. He had defeated a superior army at Stone River. 
The secretary could not understand why he should hesi- 
tate to assail an inferior one now. It needed explanation. 
Rosecrans required the formal opinions of his corps, 
division, and cavalry generals as to the safety and ex- 
pediency of an advance. The seventeen, with singular 
unanimity, coincided that it should not be attempted. 
The chief-of-staff collected these opinions, analyzed, and 
replied to them, showed their weakness, and conclusively 
that the army could move at once. This bore date June 
1 2, and the army marched the twenty-fourth. The paper 
has been pronounced by high authority the ablest of its 
kind of the war. On the morning of the advance, one 
of the three corps commanders, Crittenden, said to Gar- 
field, at headquarters, "It is understood, sir, by the gen- 
eral officers of the army that this movement is your work. 
I wish you to understand that it is a rash and fatal move, 
3 



66 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

for which you will be held responsible." The army 
marched on the short and brilliant Tullahoma campaign, 
which relieved that region of Bragg and his army. Had 
it been commenced a week sooner, his army undoubtedly 
would have disappeared from the war. Probably the in- 
cessant heavy rains only saved him finally. It would 
have saved Chickamauga. 

The influence of Garfield on Rosecrans was very 
great. Better for all had it been entire. Crittenden and 
McCook commanded two of the three corps in the great 
battle of Chickamauga — battle of blood, glory, and dis- 
aster. The armies in array were seventy thousand Con- 
federate and fifty-five thousand Union soldiers. Thomas 
commanded on the left and McCook the right. It is 
said Garfield wrote every order on this field save that 
fatal one to Wood, which he did not see. This in effect 
induced him to break the line of battle, and with his 
division take a position in the rear of another. Long- 
street saw the blundering gap, and launched the impetu- 
ous Hood into it. The battle on the right was lost. The 
whole wing crumbled and dissolved, and McCook's whole 
corps, panic-stricken, fled, a swarm of frightened wretches, 
back to Chattanooga. 

The tramping flood of mere human beings, reft of 
reason, caught the general and chief-of-stafi" in the rush. 
One eye-witness says that the conduct of the two men, 
stripped in an instant of all power to command by the 
dissolving of the charm of discipline, was superb. Gar- 
field, dismounted, with his figure above the surging mass, 
and his resonant voice heard above the din, seized the 



WAR EXPERIENCES. 67 

colors from the fleeing bearer, who had instinctively- 
borne them off, planted them, seized men to the right 
and left, faced them about, and formed the nucleus of a 
stand, shouting his ringing appeals in the dead ears of 
the unhearing men, reft of all human attributes, save 
fear. A panic is a real disease, which for the time 
nothing can sta3^ His exertions were vain. The mo- 
ment he took his hands from a man he fled. The 
fleeing tide swept on. With a hasty permission from his 
chief, Garfield turned away to where the thunders of 
Thomas' guns proclaimed the heart of the battle to beat 
fiercest, and against whom the enemy had concentrated 
his heaviest battalions. If the weakest-pressed wing had 
been thus crushed, what might be the fate of the left? 
Thomas was not McCook. While Garfield, with a few 
staff-officers and orderlies, went to warn and aid Thomas, 
the general, with firmness and coolness, hurried to Chat- 
tanooga to gather up, preserve, and reorganize the atoms 
of McCook's corps. 

Garfield's mission was by a long and perilous ride, 
crossing the lines of the fleeing and their pursuers, hav- 
ing an orderly killed on the way. Finally, almost alone, 
he reached Thomas, half-circled by a cordon of fire, and 
explained the fate of the right. He informed him how 
he could withdraw his own right, form on a new line and 
meet Longstreet, who had turned Thomas' right and was 
marching on his rear. The movement was promptly 
made, but the line was too short to reach ground that 
would have rendered it unassailable save in front. At that 
time Gordon Granger came up with Steadman's division. 



68 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

met Longstreet at the opening thus left, and, after a fear- 
ful struggle, forced him back. Thomas, the army and its 
honor, with the soil of the disaster on the right, were 
saved. It is said as night closed on that awful day, with 
the warm steam of blood from the ghastly wounded and 
recently killed rising from the burdened earth, Garfield 
and Granger, on foot, personally directed the loading 
and pointing of a battery of Napoleons, and sent their 
shot crashing after the retiring foe, and thus closed the 
battle of Chickamauga. 

What there was left of the Union army, was left in 
possession of the field. The battle was fought Septem- 
ber 20, 1863. After a few weeks, Garfield was sent on 
to Washington with dispatches — too late to save his 
honored chief. His best skill and ability had from his 
arrival at Rosecrans' headquarters been interposed, first 
to save him from his own pungent temper, and then 
from its consequences with the department at Washing- 
ton, where, with the aid of maps, he made a most mas- 
terly expose of all of the movements of the army of the 
Cumberland. Montgomery Blair, one of the most sa- 
gacious observers and judges of men at the capital, was 
filled with astonishment and admiration at its clearness, 
force, and completeness. "Garfield," said he, to a per- 
sonal friend to whom he related the occurrence, "Gar- 
field is a great man." 

General Garfield, on his arrival at Washington, found 
himself a full major-general of volunteers, " for gallant 
and meritorious conduct at the battle of Chickamauga." 

One curious transaction, occurring while Garfield was 



WAR EXPERIENCES. 69 

connected with the army of the Cumberland, has never 
to my knowledge transpired in history, or in any form. 
It is within the memory of the well-informed that during 
one or two years, including quite the whole of 1863, 
there was a strong, decided, and almost bitter feeling of 
hostility to President Lincoln, personally, on the part of 
the leading radicals, in and out of Congress — a condem- 
nation of his policy and management, and a lack of con- 
fidence in his ability and strength of character. It is 
known that Mr. Greeley shared this sentiment to the full- 
est extent. He and the rest naturally felt the greatest 
anxiety to secure the best possible man as Lincoln's suc- 
cessor in 1864, and it was largely due to the difficulty 
of procurmg a candidate that induced these men silently, 
and sullenly, to acquiesce in the instinctive choice of 
the masses, who demanded his renomination at Balti- 
more. The brilliant qualities of Rosecrans, and the 
fame of the battle of Stone River, drew their eyes to 
him as the possible man on whom to fix and bring for- 
ward; and Edmund Kirk,* a writer of some ability and 
shrewdness, was sent forward with letters to Garfield — in 
whose judgment they had confidence— with instructions 
to remain at headquarters, observe, gather up opinions, 
learn the views of the chief of-staff, and, if all concurred, 
Rosecrans was to be approached, sounded, and his ac- 
quiescence in the plan secured if possible. 

The clear, sagacious mind of Garfield saw the futility 
and probable evil consequences of the project at once. 
He gave it such emphatic discouragement that it is be- 

* Kirk was Iiis nom de plume. His real name was Gilmore. 



yo LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

lieved no whisper of it ever reached Rosecrans, or any- 
considerable number of men not in the secret. These 
reasons he urged among others: that it would be ruinous 
to the usefulness of his general; that it could not suc- 
ceed ; that it ought not to. Kirk was convinced, and the 
idea was abandoned. He, however, cultivated the ac- 
quaintance of Garfield, to whom, like most men, he was 
strongly drawn, and managed, in various conversations 
— in which Garfield is the frankest of men — to draw 
from him something of his early life. 

As a consequence, not long after, there appeared 
"The Patriot Boy," by Trowbridge. Of the hero of this 
pleasant novel the friends of General Garfield had little 
difficulty in recognizing the one intended. 

The military career of General Garfield ends here. A 
year before, in his absence, the people of his congres- 
sional district desired, of all things, to place him in the 
house, and they elected him. Ordinarily, this would 
have been gratefully acquiesced in; now it came to break 
a high, brilliant, possibly a great career in arms, where, 
in his judgment, he could be equally and perhaps the 
more useful. As a matter of ambition, the sacrifice was 
great. He was a full major-general, with the largest 
confidence of the secretary of war, was the idol of the 
men he commanded, had the entire confidence of the 
army, save some of the "seventeen generals" of the 
army of the Cumberland, perhaps, and at that time the 
promise of a continuance of the war was of the largest. 
Easily he saw that no man could in the glitter and splen- 
dor of arms, and the names and fames they made and 



WAR EXPERIENCES. 7 1 

marred, with which the land was filled, made for himself 
a name in congress; that the executive was substantially 
the government ; that congress was but a committee of 
ways and means, and all its powers went but to swell, 
strengthen, and sustain the executive arm. Mr. Lincoln 
wanted the aid of his fresh, strong, sagacious intellect in 
the house. Backed by his fame in arms, he would be a 
power. He urged and implored him to change his field 
of labor; and, judge of man, as he was, and hopeful of 
a speedy end of the war, he foresaw that, whatever 
might be the aid derived immediately from the young 
general's turning civilian, his ultimate field was there. 
Garfield acquiesced. He seems scarcely ever to have 
controlled his own destiny. 



CHAPTER IV. 

PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS. 
Partial Estimate of His Character.— Exactions of Friends.— Lacks 
Egoism.— Had He a Plan of Life.— No Lack of Moral Courage.— 
The Wade-Davis Manifesto.— Faces a Frowning Convention.— Re- 
sult.— His Growth on the Public— Fears of Being Named for the 
Presidency Prematurely. — Marriage. 

The oft-expressed purpose of this sketch to present a 
personal view of General Garfield, rather than a meagre 
history, must be taken as accomplished here. Few lives 
present richer or more varied and attractive material to 
the biographer. The opportunity to write a complete 
life, it is hoped, will not be presented to any man of this 
generation. The people of Geauga and Lake have him 
with them. His public life is their property, one of their 
most valuable possessions. They know his history as 
well as I do. I have brought forward, from the early, 
uncertain past, so much of it as will enable them some- 
what to reaUze his qualities and capacity for service, and 
help to some appreciative judgment of his stature and 
position, so difficult to estimate in his presence. Never, 
till a man can be drawn against a background of the past, 
when he and all his surroundings have become subject 
to the law of perspective, and the light about him has 
become cold and pure, can a historian draw him with 
accuracy of judgment. 



PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS. 73 

One or two things I may venture further, and mainly 
in the light of my own narrative, and somewhat in 
answer to a question asked by friends of the subject of 
it. "What is the lack in Garfield? What is the thing 
wanting?" Not large and obvious, or what it is, as well 
as its absence, would at once be seen. Some little thing 
wanting to completeness ; a lack felt, not seen, hard to 
define, yet a coming short of the perfection demanded of 
him. And, then, instances are mentioned where he has 
unexpectedly failed, in that he has not met the demand 
of the occasion, or of his friends' expectations as is 
claimed ; and in a most baffling and unsatisfactory way, a 
half-score of times. It has been defined as a lack of 
moral courage, and ere the words have ceased came 
some exhibition of that attribute or quality pure and 
simple. 

More than once it has appeared in the course of this 
narrative, if such it may be called, that important changes 
have occurred in Mr. Garfield's career without much in- 
telligent action on his part, when the matter was seem- 
ingly within his control. Men are hardly willing to allow 
that he could be guilty of fault of judgment, or hesitate 
from not clearly seeing the right. His failures may not 
be covered with these charities. In his own and in the 
affairs of the public there is an unwillingness to credit 
him with common fallibility, and charge it to the common 
account of the weakness of human nature. So well 
endowed is he that he should want in nothing, even that 
little thing so small and uncertain as to elude identity 
and escape detection. I do not believe in human per- 



74 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

fection. I may only query for this puzzling lack. I go 
back to this recent remark, that his life, however rich and 
varied, has lacked the unity of seeming design, or that 
sort of continuity indicative of plan adhered to, either of 
which argues possible lack or superabundance. 

His one passion was the sea. For its indulgence he 
toiled and schemed, if this last word will apply to the 
mental processes of such a man. When that was fully 
given up, not overcome, he turned himself to acquire an 
education. Yet why, in the ordinary philosophy of life, 
is the mystery. The son of wealth may be educated, 
merely because his father is rich, and desires he should 
have the polish of culture. Garfield was poor, and must 
make his own way. What did he propose to do with his 
learning when acquired? What use would he make of 
himself when educated? It looks much as if, when 
brought to face this problem, with the stimulus of a 
strong, eager, hungry mind he pushed into and pushed 
on from that logical sense of completeness which he early 
exhibited. So it would seem that he became a teacher 
because it was there to be done ; he found pleasure in it, 
excelled in it, but found in time that whatever his pro- 
gramme was, it did not embrace a college professorship, 
and so of his preaching. Clearly he studied law by de- 
sign. If it was with any intention of pursuing it as a 
calling, it has never in any considerable degree been ad- 
hered to. He tries cases occasionally, and well, in the 
supreme court of the United States. I do not believe 
that he entered public life to make of it a trade, a call- 
ing, or a profession, and I think he has constantly in- 



PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS. 75 

tended or expected to retire from it. A man often 
intends the opposite of what he expects. In short, to a 
superficial observer, his life, rich and varied, seems rather 
the result of his surroundings, which he has not resisted, 
but, with a remarkable adaptability, has turned himself 
largely and readily into new channels. Why didn't 
he defeat the salary bill? An answer, two or three of 
them, can be given without involving any lack of quality 
or faculty. I am now referring to another thing, which 
brings this matter of lack to an issue, where some reply 
is called for. Why don't he lead his party in the house? 
Long service, rare ability, complete mastery of all the 
essentials, — position included, quickness, temper, per- 
sonal bearing, absence of enmities, all unite. The reins 
trail carelessly through the hall, are thrown over his desk 
repeatedly, are sometimes in his hands, and admirably 
used on occasion. Why don't he take them firmly as his, . 
assert himself, be the man he is, and make the most of 
it? Why, indeed? That is the question. 

Why did he not carry off the Seventh Ohio regiment? 
Why did he permit himself to be appointed lieutenant- 
colonel of the Forty-second, when he might as well have 
been full colonel ? Why has he not grasped the Ohio 
senatorship, or done half a score of things for the not 
doing of which he is complained of? 

He is not a self-seeker, never has been. By nature he 
cannot be. His lack is egoism, if the absence of that 
quality is a lack; and whenever or wherever that element, 
if such it is, of men's nature enters into the subject of 
action, he will be apt to take that course from which it 



76 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

is absent, or the least involved. If, other things being 
nearly equal, a course is open to him which he can take 
without self-assertion, he will take it. So of that notable 
case of the salary bill. If all the other considerations 
were equal, self-assertion, not courage nor firmness, for 
they were rather needed for the course he pursued; but 
self-assertion, egoism, the thing I, was the thing to defeat 
it, and hence the bill passed. That setting of oneself 
up above all others is not much in his nature, no vestige 
of arrogance. Courage of the chivalrous order — spirit 
abundant, but to set himself up, claim for himself, which 
this involves — is certainly not much in him. 

Let his party, formally or informally, elect him leader, 
and see what will come of it. They would have to do it 
spontaneously. 

As bearing on this delicate matter, which I touch with 
•gentle hand, one incident in Mr. Garfield's early con- 
gressional career may be mentioned. The Wade-Davis 
manifesto of 1864, containing so much truth, yet so 
actually revolting to the Republican masses, was a sore 
thing with them, and for a time cast a cloud even on 
Mr. Wade. 

The Republican convention in Garfield's district had 
assembled in Warren to nominate his successor in con- 
gress. It wanted to nominate him. It was said that he 
had not condemned the manifesto; on the contrary, 
quite justified it. If there was anything predetermined 
in that body, it was a unanimous condemnation of that 
paper. And Garfield, and no other man who upheld it, 
could receive a nomination at its hands. It was in trouble. 



PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS. ^^ 

It loved him. It would compromise, would do anything 
but approve that paper. It sent a committee to his ho- 
tel, and respectfully asked his views, certain that he would 
in some way accommodate himself to their requirements, 
at least enough to permit his re-nomination. There were 
not wanting friends to advise some little show of conces- 
sion. Here was a chance for that lack in the man to 
help him out. The general went in looking a little grave, 
took the stand, and, in a ringing, proud, half-defiant 
speech of twenty minutes, approved the manifesto and 
justified Wade. Amid the silence of the blank amaze- 
ment of the convention he strode haughtily out. A 
spirited young delegate, seeing the silent dismay of the 
elders, arose with " By George ! the man that has the cour- 
age to face a convention like that, deserves a nomina- 
tion," and moved it by acclamation. Ere the feet of the 
retiring congressman had passed the outer threshold, the 
building shook with the thundering acclaim that declared 
him the nominee. That people have little faith in his lack 
of courage of any kind. 

Rare and varied as has been the career of this gentle- 
man, one phenomenon has attended both himself per- 
sonally, and the estimation of him by the public, — a 
steady, rapid, uninterrupted growth. Not only has he 
been tried in many fields, in all of which he has easily 
and assuredly excelled, but the man has steadily devel- 
oped, broadened, deepened, and risen in intellectual 
qualities and excellence, and now, at forty-seven is evi- 
dently making as steady an advance in healthful mental 
growth as at any time since known to the public. Men- 



78 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

tal old age will come late to him ; probably not at all. He 
may even overcome the unknown defect in character or 
mind, or what it proves to be, by sheer growth. 

Compare him with any man who entered public life at 
about the same time, with all of them for that matter, or 
with any man at the period of his career corresponding 
with the years of Garfield's public life, and who of them 
has ever attained a wider regard and confidence, and 
with so few drawbacks, forfeitures, and blemishes of 
record? Has there ever been a time when his position 
before the country was so steadily and rapidly growing as 
now? 

I foresee but one danger; it springs from no defect of 
character, but the peril of being named by some super- 
serviceable friend, or ingenious enemy, for an unnamed 
place prematurely. I believe him too well poised to be 
personally injured. Let the future provide for him as 
has the past. He may leave himself in the hands of the ^ 
fates or forces which have been so 'kind to him. But the 
impression that he, or they, or it were shaping things for 
any special elevation of him would greatly impair his ad- 
vance in the public confidence and esteem, and render 
him less useful. 

Mr. Garfield, in his professor days, was joined in mar- 
riage with Lucretia, daughter of Zeb. Rudolph, of Hiram, 
a lady of rare excellence of character, charm of person 
and manner, alike loved and admired at the capital as in 
the country. They have a promising family of sons, with 
one daughter, an attractive cottage and farm in Mentor, 
a pleasant, modest residence in Washington. 



PART SECOND. 



LIFE AT THE CAPITAL, 



CHAPTER I. 

CONGRESSIONAL LIFE. 

The House of Representatives is the Governing Body. — Its Character. 
— Conditions of Success Compared with the Senate. — Leading Men 
of the House. — Old Members, Colfax, Stevens, and others. — Remark- 
able Influx of New, Strong Men.-Blaine, Creswell, Boutwell, Wind- 
ham, Allison, and others. — Garfield's District. 

In December, 1863, Garfield entered the house of 
representatives of the congress of the United States, the 
governing branch of the legislature of the Republic. 
Largely the most numerous, so it is the most popular and 
interesting of the two houses, with a character, laws, tra- 
ditions, spirit, and usages, peculiar to itself. Its mem- 
bers the most approachable and often the least dignified 
and unassuming of men, the house, as a body, is the 
most despotic, severe, and awful, in its conceptions of 
its own dignity, and in its bearing toward those w^ho 
offend it, or who attempt anywhere, at any time, to in- 
vade its sanctities, or infringe upon the privileges of its 
members. At times the noisiest and most unruly of as- 
semblages, it always knows what it is about, and never 
departs far or tarries long from the line of its duties, as 
it esteems them. 

No deliberative body pretending to dispute by rule, ever 
attempted to govern itself by a code of laws and rules 
so complex and artificial, and it remains to be seen 

6 e; 



82 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

whether greatly the new rules adopted at its last session, 
are an improvement. As a business body it partakes 
largely of the infirmities of all popular assemblages. It 
has its times of intelligenoe, order and work, and its days 
of doing nothing, when its leaders make haste to ad- 
journ, and betake them to their committee rooms, where 
more and more its share of the legislative work of the 
Republic is done. It has already reached that size, when 
an increase of its numbers would diminish its working 
capacity. Its average of intellectual cai:>acity greatly 
varies. One believes on the whole that with the passing 
years there is a steady advance in this respect, as in the 
individual character of its members. It always has a fair 
share of the best minds, but there never was a house that, 
as a whole, did not greatly resemble a body of ordinary 
men, and never a day, when the presence in it of a large 
number, was not a wonder to the thoughtful observer. 
Common as it appears, a stranger is in danger of greatly 
underestimating the intelligence of the house. There 
always are minds of a high order, which by common con- 
sent, and unconsciously to the average man, direct it, and 
lead him along the route of safe, and often of wise and 
enlightened, legislation. An observer for a considerable 
period comes finally to regard the house as a huge body 
of immense forces, full of grand instincts and capable of 
noble impulses, never clearly seeing, often groping and 
sometimes going wrong, but which on the whole slowly 
moves on the line of human advance. 

While the average of intellect is not much above the 
good common, the house never fails unerringly to know 



CONGRESSIONAL LIFE. 83 

Its own men. Sham and pretence never impose upon it 
for a moment. It will not tolerate dullness and stupidity. 
It good-naturedly sets apart days for them, and goes 
home. It knows what it wants, and when found, it 
appreciates and cherishes the giver. Every man soon 
takes his proper place, finds his rank, and always at his 
merit. The house is not a great admirer of eloquence, 
and is never tickled with sound. To it the mere maker 
of speeches, is the most useless of men, if not the great 
est of bores. The time is long past for a man to make 
a reputation by a speech on the floor, and the house 
often differs with the country in its estimate of its own 
man. Whatever may be a man's reputation at home in 
city or country, he has none at the capital, and whatever 
may have been his position there, he begins in the ranks 
here. There is now no harder place in the world of men,, 
of contest and labor, to make a reputation, win a place,, 
than in the American house of representatives. Less; 
ability and tact, will win fame in the senate. Of all the 
distinguished men now in that body, there are not five, 
not educated in the house, who, if transferred to it, 
would ever again be heard of. The conditions of the 
house, the nature of its service, its laws and usages, its 
very size and numbers, its traditions and temper, make 
it the most difficult and trying ordeal to which a man 
can be subjected. Ability alone cannot master it; will 
and force of character do not conquer it. Genius is 
powerless in its presence. Steadiness, intelligence and 
integrity, with time enough, will win, as they do every- 
where. But when time depends on the caprice of a 



84 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

constituency, it is seen how seldom this element lends 
itself to any man's advance. 

Into this body, at a few days past thirty-two years of 
age, this man, of whom the reader now has a good idea, 
entered, to take his place in the mass of the unknown 
and untried representatives, beginning where all begin, 
and winning, as all must win. To sketch his personal 
career in that body, to present it with brief reference 
to his connection with leading measures, is all that can 
be done, and that imperfectly. 

To write him up with breadth, and bring out his grow- 
ing influence on legislation and politics, would be to 
write the political history of the country, from mid war 
to the present. We know, in advance, that this large- 
brained, large-hearted, large-souled man, with his great 
capacity for the best work, his immense vitality, warm 
magnetism, and decided personality, will not linger in the 
undistinguished herd, nor do any but the best and most 
work; that sooner or later must largely influence, if not 
control measures. 

Ere I enter upon my task, something must be said of 
the persotinel of his associates of the house. Those 
whom he found there, the more marked who entered 
with him — a glance at their careers, as of the later 
comers and goers of the years to follow, and something 
of the spirit of congressional life may also be found in 
my pages. 

The places of the eleven seceding States were vacant 
in the hall of the house. Schuyler Colfax was elected 
speaker. This was his fifth congress. He was now forty 



CONGRESSIONAL LIFE. 85 

years of age, of good person, pleasant address, a rapid, 
persuasive speaker, able, politic, admired, and immensely 
popular; no man at the capital ever more so. Though 
not a lawyer, he mastered, as well as man may, the laws 
of the house, and ruled it with dignity and suavity, for 
six years. The speaker of the house fills the real second 
place in the American government. From this he re- 
tired, through the vice-presidency — than which there is 
no easier or more effective avenue — to private life. 

Thaddeus Stevens, chairman of the ways and means, 
and titular leader of the house; strong, masterful and 
arbitrary — not the leader, not a leader of men in any 
sense ; a driver rather. Though in private life the gentlest 
and tenderest of men, in a public body, stormy, sharp, 
sarcastic, with a merciless, caustic wit. Not an eloquent, 
scarcely a good speaker, who put an end to an ordinary 
man with a sarcasm, and sometimes answered inquiry for 
information with aquafortis. He was then seventy-one, 
and had served in many congresses; was the peer of the 
Blacks and Merediths of Pennsylvania, and the greatest 
embodiment of revolutionary forces in the two houses. 

Elihu B. Washburn, the titular father of the house, 
though then but forty-seven ; strong, able, forceful, hon- 
est and brave; more of a leader, and not less masterful, 
than Stevens ; always direct and above-board, with a 
temper not of the politic cast, and which sometimes was 
troublesome — a good man for any time, and one of the 
men for that time. 

Justin S. Morrill was one of the prominent men of the 
Thirty-eighth congress, and one of the most valuable in 



86 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

the history of our legislation. Second on the ways and 
means, he was by far its best man. Tariffs and indus- 
tries were his specialties. Mr, Garfield early attracted 
his notice, and when he became the head of the com- 
mittee in the Thirty-ninth congress, the young Ohio re- 
presentative, at his special request, became his second. 

William D. Kelley entered the Thirty-seventh con- 
gress, was conspicuous in the Thirty-eighth, and has 
filled a large place in the public vision ever since. A 
man of fine literary tastes, with a quick, eager, sagacious 
mind, he early took one of the first places as an orator 
and debater, which he retains. 

Robert C. Schenck, after an absence of many years, 
returned to his old seat; coming with the memory of 
his former high position to fill a larger and higher place. 
One of the ablest of the hard-workers who ever sat there, 
and whom it is now the fashion to slur over by men 
never his peers in ability and usefulness. 

John A. Bingham, the orator of the house, and one of 
the hundred best speakers who ever sat in it, and a 
statesman as well, missed the Thirty-eighth congress, re- 
appearing in the Thirty-ninth. 

So of Roscoe Conkling, three years the senior of 
Garfield — in some respects, one of the strongest men of 
either house, one of the masters of sarcasm, with a power 
of producing his thought better and more sharply de- 
fined and cleaner cut than almost any debater in our 
parliamentary history. 

Henr}' Winter Davis returned to Congress this year — 
an event in itself. Proudest and most reticent of men, 



CONGRESSIONAL LIFE. 87 

with the gift of genius, and a rare power of speech, he 
seems to have added Httle to his former great reputation. 
He died in December, 1865. 

Henry L. Dawes, of IMassachusetts, was there at the 
height of his great usefulness, perhaps better adapted to 
the house, where he was educated, than to the senate, 
to which he has been transferred. 

Samuel S. Cox, the wit and wag of the house, and a 
good deal more. He was then from Ohio, and had man- 
aged td- get his growth early. 

James E. English, of Connecticut, one of the ablest of 
the Democrats, and a high-minded man. 

And old melancholy Governor Francis Thomas, of 
Maryland, was in the house. 

Daniel W. Voorhees-, an orator, young, vigorous, and 
growing to the head of the western Democracy. 

WiUiam H. Wadsworth, of Kentucky, who maintained 
its fame for eloquence. 

James F. Wilson, of Iowa, a man of more sturdy vigor 
and strength than often reaches congress in one man. 

William Windom, of Minnesota, who has grown steadily, 
silently and naturally, to the front rank. And there were 
scores of good men. There was Isaac N. Arnold, one of 
the two only outspoken friends of President Lincoln, at the 
close of theThirty-seventh congress ; Fernando C. Beaman, 
and Portus Baxter; William S. Holman, of Indiana, and 
George W. Julian, one of the strongest and best cultured 
men of the house; Frederick Pike, of Maine; Theodore* 
Pomeroy, of New York, apd Alexander H. Rice, of Mas- 
sachusetts; and certainly the able and accomplished 



88 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

George H. Pendleton should have distinguished mention. 
Vallandigham was still in exile, while J. M. Ashley, of 
Ohio, was a very conspicuous figure on the floor and 
filled much space in the field of general politics. 

TheThirty-eighth congress is marked in our annals by 
the appearance of new and strong men upon the national 
boards; some of whom are remarkable. Among the 
first stands James G. Blaine, but a year older than Gar- 
field; a born parliamentary leader — a leader of men every- 
where ; gifted with great personal advantages, a strong, 
quick, brilliant intellect, rare powers of speech, with inflex- 
ibility of will, and great force of character. Aggressive, 
heroic, no civilian since Henry Clay has had so much 
magnetism, as certainly since his day there has not 
appeared in the national lists so intrepid and gallant a 
leader, or one who dashes along the front of the adverse 
host so fearlessly. 

J. A. J. Cresswell also, three years the senior of Gar- 
field, came in from Maryland, was transferred to the 
senate, from which he entered the cabinet of President 
Grant. Able and brilliant, he was selected by the 
house of representatives to deliver the eulogy on his 
friend and colleague, Henry Winter Davis, a distinguished 
honor to each. 

George S. Boutwell had been governor of Massachu- 
setts, and now made his advent upon the national plat- 
form. Sharp, ready, incisive. He went through the 
treasury department as secretary and from thence into the 
senate. 

James Brooks, able, a man of unusual accomplish- 



CONGRESSIONAL LIFE. 89 

ments, and enviable position, whose sad ending would 
go far to condone even grave faults. 

William B. Allison, of Iowa, now senator, first en- 
tered the house in this congress, as did John A. 
Kasson, minister to Austria, and Senator Kernan, and 
William R. Morrison, of Illinois; also Godlove S. Orth, 
of Indiana, and Samuel J. Randall. 

This congress also received Rufus P. Spalding and 
Fernando Wood, both able men, with the airs of grand 
seignieurs. John A. Griswold and John Ganson, of 
New York; Ebon C. Ingersoll, of Illinois; T. A. 
Jencks, of Rhode Island; E. R. Eckly, of Ohio, and 
some others. 

Distinguished and able men thronged the senate. 
Sumner and Wilson still represented Massachusetts, and 
Wade and Sherman, Ohio; CoUamer and Foot, Ver- 
mont. Pennsylvania had Buckalew and Cowan. One 
wants to ask what has become of them. Chandler and 
Howard bore up the honor of Michigan. Grimes and 
Harlan cared for that of Iowa. John P. Hale was still 
there, growing lazy and careless. Harris and E. D. 
Morgan silendy sustained the position of New York. 
Doolittle was there for Wisconsin. Howe was by his side 
when not in advance of him. Lyman Trumbull was 
there for Illinois, with strong, rough Richardson. Rev- 
erdy Johnson sustained the old fame of Maryland, and 
McDougal, wittiest and frailest of senators, stood up, 
when he could stand, for California. Lott M. Morrell 
represented Maine, while Fessenden was secretary of the 
treasury. Alexander Ramsey, of Minnesota, was alsO' 



90 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

then in the senate. It had many conspicuous and able 
men not here named. 

On this stage, among these men, old and new, the 
young general, sun-browned and battle-scorched, from 
the war, made his appearance, as one of the joint body. 
He is to know them and be known by them, associate 
■with them, become a friend, a rival, an opponent, an 
enemy never. Will live with them, and grow up with and 
become a conspicuous part of the legislative history of 
the Republic, for all the succeeding years to this day. 
Will remain such part or pass to the highest and most 
solitary. 

At his election, he was a resident of the county of 
Portage. The rest of his district, Ashtabula, Geauga, 
Lake, Trumbull and Mahoning, constituted the old dis- 
trict of Joshua R. Giddings — so much of New England 
translated into the freer, broader and more fertile west. 
The people, intelligent, shrewd, not given to enthusiasm, 
understanding men, and knowing the cash values of 
things, they had taken to the young man, and nomi- 
nated and elected him without especially consulting him, 
which somehow set the fashion in his career. Not all fair 
weather will it be between them and the youth of their 
love. Bickerings, misconceptions, and busy tongues, 
ambitious intriguers will intervene, and he will turn and 
face them and have a fair and square set-to, and they 
will never, never doubt him again. 



CHAPTER II. 

LIFE AT THE CAPITAL. 

Lincoln's Offer.— Committee on Military Affairs.— State of the Army. 
— Increase of Bounties' Speech. — A Crisis. — Meets It.— Chief Jus- 
tice Chase.— New Army Bill.— Defeated.— Lincoln Meets the Com- 
mittee. — Substitute. — Speech. ^Passage of Bill. — Proclamation and 
Answer. — Reply to Long. — Presidential Canvass. — Defies the Nomi- 
nating Convention at Warren. — Thirteenth Amendment. — Speech in 
Reply to Pendleton. 

We resume the thread of our narrative. It was stated 
in chapter third that General Garfield went to Washing- 
ton with a mission from his military chief to the Presi- 
dent and secretary of war. It was late in the season, 
and near the time of the assembling of congress. On 
his way, he went around by his home in Hiram. There 
he found his-first born, "Little Trot," less than three 
years old, one of the rare sweet buds that perish ere 
opening, seemingly waiting for his parting kiss ere her 
departure, and left him as if to show how sweet death 
might seem, and how near and precious the unseen. He 
held her in his arms, to secure the last presentiment of 
her dead face, and left the stricken mother by the little 
grave's side, to make his darkened, solitary way, to the 
life and scenes of the capital. The result of his mission 
to the President has been stated. Nothing could save 
Rosecrans. Garfield had received a letter from General 



92 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

Thomas, now at the head of the army of the Cumber- 
land, offering him the command of a division, and had 
determined to resign his seat in the house and accept it 
Every motive and impulse of his heart urged him to this. 
On expressing his purpose to the President, Mr. Lincoln 
earnestly dissuaded him from it. He represented that the 
Republicans had a very slender, if not a doubtful, 
majority in the house, that he was greatly needed, with 
his perfect knowledge of the wants of the army; that 
at least he must remain till the house was organized, and 
at work, saying that he had assured General Frank Blair," 
returned to the same house, that as soon aS he could be 
spared he would restore him his resigned commission, 
and would do the same by Schenk and himself. It will be 
remembered that the President carried out this promise 
to Blair, simply by an order restoring him, contrary to the 
opinion at this time expressed to him, by Schenk, that, hav- 
ing resigned, nothing but a reappointment could return 
him, which was undoubtedly the law. Thus strongly urged, 
Garfield acquiesced, and on Saturday, December 3d, 
resigned his commission as major general, and the next 
Monday was sworn as a representative in the house, and 
took his seat. 

General Schenk was placed at the head of the com- 
mittee on military affairs, and General Garfield received 
an honorable place with him. It made little difference 
what figure of the seven represented it, he would soon 
find his true place; the military was the great brilliant 
committee of the house and war. The Republic was in 
the midst of a gigantic struggle, all the people were at 



LIFE AT THE CAPITAL. 93 

war, intense and terrible; all the resources of the Nation 
were employed; all the powers of the executive and 
legislative departments were welded into one; a com- 
pound arm wielded to place and command immense 
armies in the field. At the head of the legislative stood 
the military committee of the house. More than one 
million two hundred thousand soldiers had been in the 
Union armies during 1873; nearly three hundred thou- 
sand had left the ranks without leave. That was the last 
year of Halleck, the year of the first inefi'ective draft, 
of the ruinous system of bounties so fatal to the army. 
Vicksburgh and Port Hudson, and with them the Missis- 
sippi were captured that year; Gettysburgh, Stone River 
and Chickamauga had been fought. The armies of the 
Tennessee, Cumberland and Ohio were consolidated, and 
placed under General Grant; and the season closed with 
less than five hundred and fifty thousand effective men of 
all arms in the field. The miUtary committee was the 
legislative hand that formulated the laws, devised the ma- 
chinery by which the last raw reserve of material, of men 
and arms, were to be rendered effective, as well as to pre- 
serve and make more perfect the vast armies still in the 
field. 

Here was an immense, conspicuous field for all the re- 
sources of ability, invention and experience of the wisest, 
most energetic and heroic men in the land; the last 
quality was as much in requisition in congress as in the 
field. An experience at the front was but little less need- 
ful to fit a man for great usefulness in congress at that 
time, than at the head of the armies. In certain direc- 



94 LIFE OF JAMES a. GARFIELD. 

tions the educational process of actual service is effective ; 
the soldier goes with a bold directness to his purpose, 
and is a stranger to the doubts and hesitancy, the timid 
policies, the fear of personal consequences, which para- 
lyze the average politician, of even good parts. The 
politician usually feels obliged to devote his time, ability 
and strength to protect and defend his own rear. Proba- 
bly no two men were ever better fitted for their places 
than the chief of the military committee and he who 
quite at once became his heutenant and friend. Garfield 
had been in Washington during the trial of General Por- 
ter. He now took up his solitary residence at the north- 
east corner of New York avenue and Thirteenth street, 
just a square below his present residence. Here he re- 
mained till the holiday vacation, when, at the invitation 
of General Schenk, he joined him at Mrs. Lecont's house 
on C, near 4^4, a historic neighborhood of many mem- 
ories. On one side of it was the house which long shel- 
tered Professor Morse, on the other the old residence 
of Dr. Baily, of the National Era, opposite were the 
residences of Daniel Webster, and of Lewis Cass. This 
place soon became a sort of army headquarters, where 
one might meet all the distinguished and other generals 
when they happened to be at the capital; as all the in- 
ventors of new arms, projectiles run mad with plans to 
end the war, enthusiasts, visionaries, the unfortunate and 
unappreciated great men, with bummers, and loafers on 
the outside. Here were drawn out, discussed, and ma- 
tured the great bills to be submitted to the committee, 
and launched upon the house. 



LIFE AT THE CAPITAL. 95 

During the first week of the session, an incident oc- 
curred in the young representative's career, so illustrative 
of the man, as well as of the new service, that I mention 
it. The use of chloroform and ether, and the history 
of their discovery and introduction was then little 
known, and probably nothing in use could then be men- 
tioned of which a congressman knew less. Anaesthetics 
were extensively used in the hospitals, and the matter 
came before the committee, on Dr. Morton's memorial, 
accompanied by ample testimonials from eminent men of 
Boston. It was referred to the committee. Dr. Morton 
claimed to be the discoverer of chloroform, and de- 
manded a large sum as compensation, for its use, in the 
hospitals. An inscription, in cuneiform characters, would 
have been barely more embarrassing to the military com- 
mittee. The chairman read it, and ran his eyes over the 
faces of his committee, to choose a luckless victim of 
chloroform. They nearly all made shuddering haste to 
disclaim the slightest knowledge of the subject. Garfield 
casually remarked that it was a remarkable claim. It 
was at once assigned to him, and the clerk so entered it 
on the committee's calendar. It had long been Garfield's 
habit to secure some odd out of the way thing to read up 
in his hours of leisure on the cars or elsewhere. Some 
years before, on taking the cars for home from a remote 
city, he stepped into a bookstore, to secure the required 
unusual thing. Running his eye along the backs of a 
row of books, it was arrested by "Anaesthesia," on the 
back of one of them. He purchased it. It was an ex- 
haustive discussion of chloroform and ether, and of the 



96 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

claims of Dr. Morton who was a dentist; Prof. Jackson, 
a man of science; Dr. Wells, and perhaps, some others, 
to be the discoverer. Of course, he mastered it, and 
this led him to note the current literature upon the sub- 
ject since. At the next session of the committee, he 
produced a clear, tersely written, full report, upon the 
subject. The members were amazed. It settled his 
place at once. Here was a young man who, off hand, 
knew all about anaesthesia. Good Lord ! what might not 
such a man know ! * 

On the twenty-eighth of January, he made his first 

* During his school days, he had as a fellow-student, the late Miss 
Almeda Booth, quite an equal mental associate, and they made it a rule 
never to pass a word without mastering it. One day they came upon 
"depositary." supposing it a misprint, for depository, tliey went on. 
They came up>on it again, and on investigation found it to mean the 
person with whom a thing was deposited. Early in the Ohio senate, a 
bill came up for consideration, to protect the moneys of the State from 
the Breslins or others, modelled after the sub-treasury of the general 
government, in which ample provisions were made to secure the vaults, 
safes and all the depositories, but using depositary, to designate the 
place. Almeda's classmate, called attention to the word, assuming that 
it was an inadvertent slip, and moved a correction. He was about the 
youngest man ever in the senate, and as little Icnown there then, and the 
proposition was received with derision. One senator thought he was 
more nice than wise ; another, that he was very hypercritical, while a 
third suggested that the senate had little need of the school-master. 
He made a snappy rejoinder, defined the words, when there was a rush 
for the big dictionary on the clerk's desk, when congratulating the 
senators for resorting to what they seem to have before missed, the 
schoolmaster, he sat down. A brief consultation of the "unabridged" 
was followed by a recommittal of the bill. The senate soon learned 
that t!ie school-master was but a minor character of the young man's 
repertorj'. The reader will also remember the club of young critics. 



I 



LIFE AT THE CAPITAL. 97 

speech. The confiscation bill was under discussion. 
He had already had occasion to make short explanatory 
statements on the floor, characterized by clearness and 
directness, and the house came af once to see that the 
youthful hero of Chickamauga had the power of exposi- 
tion. Confiscation remained what it was in theThirty- 
seventh congress — an endless labyrinth, where the law- 
yers, were like Milton's devils, 

"Wandering in tangled mazes lost," 

in the technics and provisions of the English stat- 
utes. The bill had military features, which made his 
occasion. There was the never worked out native puzzle, 
what was the status of the seceded States? Were they 
still States in contemplation of law? And were they in 
or out of the Union? If in the Union, what were the 
rights of their people, and what the powers of congress 
over them? Of course, the malign thing, slavery, was 
ever present. As we know, Mr. Garfield brought to the 
discussion of the complex subject the light to be gained 
from an exhaustive study of English history and statutes, 
and he shed through and over the whole a clear, strong 
light. His replies to the points made by the Democrats 
were exceedingly well done, and in off-hand answers to 
their numerous interruptions, he showed a readiness ot 
resource, and flexible use of his powers, more than sug- 
gestive of what time and practice were to make of him — 
one of the very ablest parliamentary debaters of his time. 
The speech produced a marked impression, alike upon 
the course of the debate, as well upon the fortunes of 
the new power, which had entered upon the national 
7 



98 LIFE OF JAiMES A. GARFIELD. 

forum. As was their wont, the members gathered about 
him when he began, to take his measure and estimate 
his weight. Those who came to criticise remained to 
admire, and finally to be enlightened. His position in 
the army, his campaign against Humphrey Marshall, the 
ability he had shown as chief of staff, his great exertions 
at Chickamauga, around which the tales of his dashing 
courage had thrown the halo of heroism, were all in his 
favor. His fine person, splendid head, musical, sonorous 
voice and good manner, above all, the firm grasp of his 
subject, his broad mastery of historic accessories, and 
thorough study of the law involved, which gave him easy 
play in the new field, with his flowing, facile delivery, 
stamped the effort as above a high average of good 
speeches, ranking it with tne remarkable first speeches in 
the house. To those who wish for a concise statement 
of English history, covering the period of the expulsion 
of the second James, or a forcible statement of the con- 
stitutional problem of the position of the rebel States, 
under clear, strong light, will find it of great service. It 
fixed the position of the young representative on the floor 
of the house, and opened the . paths to reputation 
through the country. 

In April following, on the bill to increase the bounties 
to soldiers, he made a startling five minute speech against 
it. Short as it was, it pictured the fatal results of buying, 
bribing our countrymen to fight their own battles, where- 
by we secured the bribers' purchase — the very poorest 
material — did not secure it, for the thus bought at once 
deserted to re-enlist elsewhere, and flee again. The only 



LIFE AT THE CAPITAL. 99 

gain was a new name to our language — "bounty-jumper." 
Alas! it was on the eve of a new election, then more im- 
portant than the pending march through the wilderness. 
On the passage of the bill, one hundred and twelve re- 
corded their names in favor of it, to James A. Garfield, 
solus, against it. Moved by his sublime courage, in view 
of the pendency of his own re-election, Grinnell, of 
Iowa, plucked his name away from the herd who would 
supplement the evil, and secure their own seats, and 
placed himself by the side of him who heard only the 
calls of his country. 

An artist who would seize an incident in our congres- 
sional history, the portrayal of which should embody the 
immovable granite which is the basis of heroic charac- 
ter, and crown it with a courage that will not calculate 
consequences, will find it in the defiant figure of the 
young representative, the most youthful of the body, 
haughtily confronting the whole house of representatives 
on this vote. 

The late Chief Justice Chase, then secretary of the 
treasury, the embodiment of inflexible will, and calm, 
cold resolution, sought him, and gave him his warmest 
congratulation. He had measured himself with a great 
crisis, and towered above it. But he prudently admon- 
ished him not to go rashly in pursuit of occasions person- 
ally so perilous to himself Meet them, if they came, as 
he did this, but it was very important that he remain in 
public life. Do the heroic sparingly. We shall see how 
he acted under this characteristic advice. 

The existing draft-law, framed with such painstaking 



lOO LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

care, to not draft soldiers for the army, had fully developed 
its efficiency for that purpose. It had thirteen classes of 
exemptions, and the man who escaped through none of 
them could lay down his three hundred dollars, and walk 
back to his peaceful pursuits. The three hundred thous- 
and drafted under it in 1863 yielded to the army twelve 
thousand men. The two generals elaborated a new bill. 
The first section repealed the commutation clause, and 
the exempting grounds were frightfully reduced. Six 
weeks the debate upon it ran on in the house, and Grant 
was wading his weltering way through the Wilderness. 
Then came a motion to strike out the first section. In 
a shot-and-shell speech, Garfield declared that the men 
who were in favor of striking out did not want to crush 
the rebeUion. On the vote, the motion prevailed, one 
hundred to fifty. 

The next day the President went to the committee 
room, and had an interview with the Republican members. 
With the sad, mysterious light in his melancholy eyes, 
as if they were familiar with the things hidden from mor- 
tals, and the grand pathos of his voice and manner, he 
stated the position of things, then — the last of June — 
three hundred and eighty thousand Union soldiers then 
in the field would return home, by the ensuing October. 
Under the existing law, the draft of one million of men 
would be required to give fifty thousand to the army. If 
the departing soldiers could not be replaced. Grant could 
not maintain himself before Richmond, and Sherman 
must retire from before Atlanta. He was answered : "It 
is on the eve of the election. Our places in the house 



LIFE AT THE CAPITAL. lOI 

depended on that. The President's own election was in- 
volved; all depended on these two." Drawing himself 
up on his seat, to a height of grandeur, he answered. " I 
have thought that all over ; my election is not necessary; 
I must put down the rebellion; I must have five hun- 
dred thousand more men." 

A substitute for the decapitated bill w\as at once intro- 
duced, and the war over it flashed up anew. On the 
twenty-fifth of June, General Garfield delivered a masterly 
and exhaustive speech in its favor. The bill was passed. 
The President issued his proclamation for five hundred 
thousand men, and the people responded — 

" W'e are coming, Father Abraham, 
Five hundred thousand more." 

A new inspiration, fresh life, restored strength and courage 
sprang up and revived the North. 

Garfield's vote against the increase of bounties was 
bitterly reprobated in his district. A public meeting near 
his home wrote him a letter, and retjuired his resignation. 
He made a temperate reply, and said he should expect 
from each of the signers a written apology for it, in the 
calm of the near future. He retained the paper, and 
was able to score against each name the mark of an apol- 
ogy received ; and all were thus crossed within a year. 

He delivered his enlightened and liberal speech on 
our commercial relations with Canada in the house, in 
March, to which future reference will be made. On the 
eighth of April he delivered the awful reply (no other 
one word so aptly characterizes it), to Alexander Long, of 
Cincinnati. Probably it is the most complete and per^ 



I02 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

feet piece of invective, sarcasm, and indignant denuncia- 
tion ever heard in the American congress. It is a good 
deal more than that, as the reader will see by the follow- 
ing passages: 

reply to honorable alexander long, april 8, 1864. 
Mr. Chairman: 

I should be obliged to you if )-ou would direct the sergeant-at-cirms 
to bring a white flag and plant it in the aisle, between myself and my 
colleague who has just addressed you. 

I recollect on one great occasion when two great armies stood face to 
face, that, under a white flag just planted, I approached a company of 
men dressed in the uniform of the rebel confederacy, and reached out 
my hand to one of their number and told him I respected him as a 
brave man. Though he wore the emblems of disloyalty and treason, 
still, underneath his vestment, I beheld a brave and honest soul. 

I would reproduce that scene here this afternoon. I say were there 
such flag of truce— but God forgive me if I did it under any other cir- 
cumstances!— I would reach out this right hand and ask that gentle- 
man to take it; because I respect his bravery and his honesty. I be- 
lieve what has just fallen from his lips is the honest sentiment of his 
heart, and in uttering it he has made a new epoch in the history of this 
war. He has done a new thing under the sun; he has done a brave 
thing — braver than to face cannon and musketry — and I honor him for 
his candor and frankness. 

But now, I ask you to take away the flag of truce; and I will go back 
inside the Union lines and speak of what he has done. I am reminded 
by it of a distinguished chr-.-acter in Paradise Lost. When he had re- 
belled against the glory of God and "led away a thi-;d part of Heaven's 
sons, conjured against the Highest;" when after terrible battles in which 
mountains and hills were hurled by each contending host "with jacula- 
tion dire;" when, at last, the leader and his host were hurled down 
"nine times the space that measures day and night," and, after the ter- 
rible fall, lay stretched prone on the burning lake, Satan lifted up his 
shattered bulk, crossed the abyss, looked away into Paradise, and, so- 
liloquizing, said: "Which way I fly is hell; myself am hell." It seems 
to me in that utterance he expressed the very sentiment to which you 



LIFE AT THE CAPITAL. I03 

have just listened; uttered by one no less brave, malign and fallen. 
This man gathers up the meaning of this great contest, the philosophy 
of the moment, the prophecies of the hour, and in sight of the para- 
dise of victory and peace, utters his conclusion in this wail of terrible 
despair, "Which way I fly is hell." He ought to add, "Myself am 
hell." ♦..♦** 

But now, when hundreds of thousands of brave souls have gone up 
to God under the shadow of the flag, and when thousands more, 
maimed and shattered in the contest, are sadly awaiting the deliver- 
ance of death ; now, when three years of terriffic war have raged over 
us, when our armies have pushed the rebellion back over mountains 
and rivers, and crowded it into narrow limits, until a wall of fire girds 
it ; now, when the uplifted hand of a majestic people is about to let fall 
the lightning of its conquering power upon the rebellion ; now, in the 
quiet of this hall, hatched in the lowest depths of a similar dark treason, 
there rises a Benedict Arnold, and proposes to surrender us all up, 
body and spirit, theNation and the flag, its genius and its honor, now 
and forever, to the accursed traitors to our country. And that propo- 
sition comes — God forgive and pity my beloved State ! — it comes from a 
citizen of the honored and loyal Commonwealth of Ohio. 

I implore you, brethren in this house, not to believe that many births 
ever gave pangs to my mother State such as she suffered when that 
traitor was born ["suppressed applause and sensation]. I beg you not to 
believe that on the soil of that State another such growth has ever de- 
formed the face of nature, and darkened the light of God's day [an 
audible whisper, "Vallandigham"]. ♦ » « 

But the gentleman takes higher ground — and in that I agree with 
him — namely, that five million or eight million people possess the right 
of revolution. Grant it ; we agree there. If fifty-nine men can make rev- 
olution successful, they have the right of revolution. If one State 
wishes to break its connection with the Federal government, and does 
it by force, maintaining itself, it is an independent nation — If the 
eleven southern States are determined and resolved to leave the Union, 
to secede, to revolutionize, and can maintain that revolution by force, 
they have the revolutionary right to do so ; grant it. I stand on that 
platform with the gentleman. And now the question comes, is it our 
constitutional duty to let them do it? That is the question, and in 



I04 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

order to reach it, I beg to call your attention, not to an argument, but 
to the condition of affairs which would result from such action — the 
mere statement of which becomes the strongest possible argument' 
\VTiat does this gentleman propose ? Where will he draw the line of 
division ? If the rebels carry into successful secession what they desire 
to carry, if their revolution envelops as many States as they intend it 
shall envelop, if they draw the line where Isham G. Harris, the rebel 
governor of Tennessee, in the rebel camp near our lines, told Air. \'a.l- 
landigham they would draw it — along the line of the Ohio and the 
Potomac — if they make good their declaration to him that they will 
never consent to any other line, then I ask what is this thing that the 
gentleman proposes to do ? * * * * 

I tell you, and I confess it here, that while I hope I have something 
of human courage, I have not enough to contemplate such a result. 
I am not brave enough to go to the brink of the precipice of successful 
secession, and look down into its damned abyss. If my vision were 
keen enough to pierce to its bottom. I would not dare to look. If there 
be a man here who dare contemplate such a spectacle, I look upon 
him as the bravest of the sons of women, or as a downright madman. 
Secession to gain peace ! Secession is the tocsin of eternal war. There 
can be no end to such a war as will be inaugurated if this thing be done. 

Suppose the policy of the gentleman were adopted to-day. Let the 
order go forth; sound the "recall" on your bugles, and let it ring 
from Texas to the far Atlantic, and tell the armies to come back. Call 
the victorious legions back over the battlefield of blood, forever now 
disgraced. Call them back over the territory they have conquered and 
redeemed. Call them back, and let the minions of secession chase 
them with derision and jeers as they come — and then tell them that 
that man across the aisle from the free State of Ohio gave birth to the 
monstrous proposition. 

Mr. Chairman, if such a word should be sent forth through the 
armies of the Union, the wave of terrible vengeance that would 
sweep back over this land could find no parallel in the records of time. 
Almost in the moments of final victory the "recall" is sounded by a 
craven people not deserving freedom ! We ought, every man, to be 
made a slave forever should we sanction such a sentiment. 

Tiie gentleman has told us there is no such thing as coercion justifi- 



LIFE AT THE CAPrfAL. I05 

able under the constitution. I ask him for one moment to reflect that 
no statute was ever enforced without coercion. It is the basis of every 
law in the universe — human or divine. A law is no law without 
coercion behind it. You levy ta.xes; coercion secures their collection. 
It follows the shadow of the thief, and brings him to justice. It lays 
its iron hand on the murderer; tries him, and hangs. It accompanies 
your diplomacy to foreign courts, and backs the declaration of the na- 
tion's rights by a pledge of the nation's strength. But when the life of 
that nation is imperilled, we are told that it has no coercive power 
against the parricides in its own bosom. » * * * 

I said a little while ago that I accepted the proposition of the gentle- 
man that the rebels possessed the right of revolution. The decisive 
issue between us and the rebellion is, whether they shall revolutionize 
and destroy, or we shall subdue and preserve. We take the latter 
ground. We take the common weapons of war to meet them; and if 
these be not sufficient, I would take any element which will overwhelm 
and destroy; I would sacrifice the dearest and best beloved; I would 
take all the old sanctions of law and the constitution and fling them to 
the winds, if necessary, rather than let the nation be broken in pieces 
and its people destroyed with endless ruin. 

W'hat is the constitution that these gentlemen are perpetually fling- 
ing in our faces whenever we desire to strike hard blows against the 
rebellion? It is the production of the American people. They made 
it, and the creator is mightier than the creature. The power which 
made the constitution can also make other instruments to do its great 
work in the day of its dire necessity. 

***«♦•#« 

Mr. Chairman, let me mention another class of facts in this same 
connection. We were compelled last year to send our secret service 
men to ferret out the insidious work of that organization known as the 
"Knights of the Golden Circle," which was attempting to corrupt the 
army and destroy its efficiency. It was found that by the most subtle 
and secret means, the signs and pass-words of that order were being 
made known to such men in the army as were disaffected or could be 
corrupted. Witness also the riots and murders which their agents are 
committing throughout the loyal north, under the head and guidance 
of the party whose representatives sit yonder across the aisle. And 



Io6 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

now, just as the time is coming when we are to select a President for 
the next four years, one rises among them and fires the beacon, throws 
Tip the blue-light, which will be seen and rejoiced over at the rebel 
capital as the signal that the traitors in our camp are organized and 
ready for their hellish work. I believe the utterance of to-day is the 
uplifted banner of revolt. I ask you to mark the signal that blazes 
here, and see if there will not soon appear the answering signal of trait- 
ors all over the land. If I am wrong in this prediction, I shall be 
thankful, but I am only too fearful of its truth. 

The close of the long session saw Mr. Garfield one of 
the most conspicuous men of the house. Probably in the 
annals of congress no fresh young man ever advanced to 
such a position in so short time, certainly none ever went 
to it so securely and certainly. Though the public gaze 
was on the armies and generals, and popular sympathy 
was with the soldiers, the labors and high qualities of the 
young representative did not escape general notice, and 
appreciation. In the presidential campaign of 1864, his 
services as a speaker were everywhere sought. In it he 
delivered sixty-five speeches and traveled seven thousand 
five hundred miles. As he received his first nomi- 
nation and election while absent in the field, so now he 
left his people to form their own estimate of him, and 
continue or reject him, as they would. The district nom- 
inating convention was called late in the season, and met 
while he was at home for a short visit. He returned 
to find the entire Reserve in flames over the Wade-Davis 
review of the war policy of the President. Unquestion- 
ably that was the subject of severe and just criticism. 
He had never seen it, knew nothing of it, save by rumor. 
He was charged with holding to the views — even with 



LIFE AT THE CAPITAL. 107 

the authorship of the paper. Wade himself was bitterly 
denounced. Garfield was proscribed by the popular 
clamor. His re-nomination was wholly dependent on 
his ability to clear himself from complicity with the man- 
ifesto, and sympathy with its statements and spirit. He 
read the paper, approved of it, and felt himself doomed. 
He was written to, and requested to be at Warren, at the 
convention and take care of himself, with a very direct in- 
timation that salvation meant denunciation of Wade and 
Winter Davis. He felt challenged. The knightly spirit of 
the old Crusader heard the trumpet call to the listed field. 
He answered that he would be in Warren on the day 
at a named hotel. There he remained in seclusion. 
The convention met, organized, took a recess for dinner, 
and sent him a delegation, who curtly informed him that 
the convention requested his presence. He entered, 
coldly, and proudly took his seat in front of the grim» 
and frowning body. After an ominous silence he 
said he had complied with their request. Why was his 
presence required? Very directly the chairman told him 
of the manifesto, of his reputed connection with it. The 
chair hoped he would appreciate the situation. The 
■district would not permit any criticism of President Lin- 
coln, nor any opposition to his policy. 

The young man arose. His six feet seemed seven, 
with' his head thrown well back, and his eyes and face 
flashing. In courteous terms he thanked them for their 
former trust, venturing to remind them that it had been 
unsought. It was frank on their part to in^'orm him ol 
the terms upon which it could alone be continued. He 



Io8 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

denied the authorship of tne paper — had only recently 
read it. He was sorry to read it. It gave him infinitely 
greater sorrow that it was entirely true. "I fully approve 
of it. If you throw over, cut off old Ben Wade, your 
course is clear with me. Truly yours, I am more truly 
my own. Good day, gentlemen." He strode out with 
the certainty that he bore his head, as he had his polit- 
ical life, in his hand. Down the stairs he stalked, giving 
them the resounding blows of his spurning heels. They 
had just crunched the gravel in front of the entrance 
when the roof of the assembly seemed to be lifted by ac- 
clamations. This was their shout over his fall, and he 
walked away haughtier than he had approached. He 
had not gone half a square when the delegates of the 
convention came running and shouting after him. 

His speech electrified the resolved and frowning con- 
vention. A young man from Ashtabula was the first to 
recover breath. He sprang to his feet, declaring that the 
man who had the grit and courage to come there and 
face a convention like that, ought to be nominated. "I 
move that he be nominated by acclamation !" And he 
was. That vote it was, that greeted the ears of the retir- 
ing hero as he smote his foot upon the ground below. 
Adjournment instantly followed, when the more eager 
flew after the restored favorite. In their after cooler mo- 
ments, many of the usually impassive men felt as if the 
act marked the convention for ridicule. "Huh!" ex- 
claimed an old man, "when we had a resolved an' sent 
for "im to receive his sentence, he jest took us by the 
noses, pulled our beards, lafed in our faces, an' went 



LIFE AT THE CAPITAL. I09 

off, an' we up an' nominated 'im quicker'n lightnin'. It 
beats all nater !" So it did, such nature as theirs, which 
was a very good and true nature, after all. 

The proclamation of the President abolished slavery 
in all the rebel States, and immense armies in their bor- 
ders were giving it bloody effect. An act of congress 
swept it from the District of Columbia, but it remained 
in its bad integrity, in Maryland, and though fearfully 
shaken in Kentucky, it then had the sanction of State 
authority. During the Thirty-seventh congress, Mr. Lin- 
coln, by a solemn message to the two houses, proposed a 
plan of emancipation on compensation, similar to that 
which purged the District of Columbia. The men of 
Maryland and Kentucky, with the stupidity of slave- 
holders, rejected it. Congress and the executive were 
resolved. Slavery should be abolished. Time and 
change must compensate slave-holders. This was the 
work of the second session of the Thirty-eighth congress. 
The great enterprise was to be accomplished by a 
solemn amendment of the constitution. It was elabo- 
rately debated. Mr. Pendleton made an able, adroit 
speech against it. His argument was, that the central 
idea of the constitution could not be abrogated by an 
amendment. That this was that purely State institu- 
tions (slavery) were placed beyond the reach of a ])ower 
outside the State. That, in no event, could the concur- 
rent action of three-fourths of the States so change the 
constitution as to thus reach a State institution of the 
other fourth of them. Slavery was a State institution, 
and therefore, not to be thus reached. He said much 



no LIFE OF TAMES A. GARFIELD. 

of the subtle, hidden soul and essence of the constitution. 
He was answered by Garfield, from whom I quote speci- 
mens of his reply, and methods of dealing with the 
questions involved: 

Mr. Speaker : We shall never know why slavery dies so hard in 
this Republic and in this hall till we know why sin has such longevity 
and Satan is immortal. With mar\ellous tenacity of existence, it has 
outlived the expectations of its friends and the hopes of its enemies. 
It has been declared here and elsewhere to be in all the several stages 
of mortality, wounded, moribund, dead. The question was raised by 
my colleague [Mr. Cox] yesterday, whether it was indeed dead, or only 
in a troubled sleep. I know of no better illustration of its condition 
than is found in Sallusfs admirable history of the great conspirator, 
Cataline, who, when his final battle was fought and lost, his army 
broken and scattered, was found far in advance of his own troops, 
lying among the dead enemies of Rome, yet breathing a little, but 
exhibiting in his countenance all that ferocity of spirit which had char- 
acterized his hfe. So, sir, this body of slavery lies before us among the 
dead enemies of the Republic, mortally wounded, impotent in its 
fiendish wickedness, but with its old ferocity of look, bearing the 
unmistakable marks of its infernal origin. 

Speaking of the covers of slavery and Pendleton's de- 
fense, he said : 

It sought an asylum in the untrodden territories of the West, but, 
with a whip of scorpions, indignant freemen drove it thence. I do not 
believe that a loyal man can now be found who would consent that it 
should again enter them. It has no hope of harbor there. It found 
no protection or favor in the hearts or consciences of the freemen of 
the Republic, and has fled for its last hope of safety behind the shield 
of the Constitution. We propose to follow it there, and drive it thence, 
as Satan was exiled from heaven. But now, in the hour of its mortal 
agony, in this hall, it has found a defender. 

My gallant colleague [Mr. Pendleton,] for I recognize him as a 
gallant and able man, plants himself at the door of his darling, and 
bids defiance to all assailants. He has followed slaver\- in its flight. 



LIFE AT THE CAPITAL. Ill 

until at last it has reached the great temple where liberty is enshrined 
— the constitution of the United States — and there, in that last retreat, 
declares that no hand shall strike it. It reminds me of that celebrated 
passage in the great Latin poet, in which the serpents of the Ionian 
sea, when they had destroyed Laocoon and his sons, fled to the heights 
of the Trojan citadel and coiled their slimy lengths around the feet of 
the tutelar goddess, and were covered by the orb of her shield. So, 
under the guidance of my colleague, [Mr. Pendleton,] slavery, 
gorged with the blood of ten thousand freemen, has climbed to the 
high citadel of American nationality, and coiled itself securely, as he 
believes, around the feet of the statue of justice and under the shield of 
the constitution of the United States. We desire to follow it even 
there, and kill it beside the very altar of liberty. Its blood can never 
make atonement for the least of its crimes. 

But the gentleman has gone further. He is not content that the 
snaky sorceress shall be merely under the protection of the constitu- 
tion. In his view, by a strange metamorphosis, slavery becomes an in- 
visible essence and takes up its abode in the very grain and fiber of the 
constitution, and when we would strike it he says, ' ' I cannot point out 
any express clause that prohibits you from destroying slavery; but I 
find a prohibition in the intent and meaning of the constitution. I go 
under the surface, out of sight, into the very genius of it, and in that 
invisible domain slavery is enshrined, and there is no power in the Re- 
public to drive it thence." 

******* 

He goes behind the letter of the constitution, and finds a refuge for 
slavery in its intent, and with that intent, he declares we have no right 
to deal in the way of amendment. 

But he has gone even deeper than the spirit and intent of the consti- 
tution. He has announced a discovery, to which I am sure no other 
statesman will lay claim. He has found a domain where slavery can 
no more be reached by human law than the life of Satan by the sword 
or Michael. He has marked the hither boundary of this newly discov- 
ered continent, in his response to t'.ie question of the gentleman from 
Iowa. 

Not finding anything in the words and phrases of the constitution 
that forbids an aiv.cndmcnt abo'.ishing slavery, he goes behind all 



112 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

human enactments, and far away, among the eternal equities, he finds 
a primal law which overshadows States, nations, and constitutions, as 
space envelopes the universe, and by its solemn sanctions, one human 
being can hold another in perpetual slavery. Surely, human ingenuity 
has never gone farther to protect a malefactor, or defend a crime. I 
shall make no argument with my colleague on this point, for in that 
high court to which he appeals, eternal justice dwells with freedom, 
and slavery has never entered. 

He grappled the argument, luminously tracing the 
power to make and amend the constitution from its true 
source. He demonstrated the constitutional power to 
change the organic law as the amendment proposed. 
The speech, like most of its author's, abounds in filicit- 
ous expressions, and sharply cut points as the reader has 
seen. 

The session ended with the congress on the third of 
JMarch, 1S65. 



CHAPTER III. 

IN CONGRESS.— EUROPEAN TOUR. 

Assassination, Destruction, Restoration. — Studies.— Needs of the Day. 
— Placed on the Ways and Means. — Eulogy of Lincoln. — Records of 
the Secretary of War.^The Milligan Case. — Bureau of Education. 
— Europe. — Return.— What He Found.— Jefferson Receives a Les- 
son. 

Mr. Garfield was in New York on the night of the as- 
sassination. A ghastly colored waiter made his way^ to 
his room at early dawn and communicated the tale to him. 
After generations cannot now appreciate the first effects of 
the blow. For a day the government lay in shattered frag- 
ments, and had its strength and life resided in physical 
force, and the trappings of power, it might have been 
overthrown. Its citadel was in the hearts of millions of 
people, and its strength their intelligent love. It was, 
and is, indestructible. For one hour, for one time, the 
mind of Garfield acted with less than its usual clear- 
ness and force. He dressed himself, made his way to 
the street, and saw around him the ominous signs of the 
breaking down of authority, in the great cosmopolitan cen- 
ter. He met many utter strangers who, without reserve, 
spoke their innermost thought and emotion. The 
streets, too, were full of dark, silent and sinister faces, as 
of men who had escaped from the pent places of dark- 
ness and hiding, and were for the first time abroad in 



114 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

the day — not a full-orbed healthy day, but one of half- 
twilight, full of shadows, and half-uttered whispers 
of impending evil. He finally reached the custom 
house, one of the seats of national authority, where was 
assembled an immense crowd of fearful, overwhelmed 
men. Mr. Odell, a representative from New York, re- 
cognized him, conducted him through the mass, up the 
steps, and pushed him forward to address the frightened 
unknowing multitude. A reporter of the Herald gath- 
ered portions of what was a solemn and impressive 
address such as a man of his mould would make under 
the circumstances. 

RESTORATION. 

The vacation of the summer of 1865 gave time and 
opportunity for a survey of the state of the Republic 
and its needs in the future. To Garfield it was obvious 
that a period of destruction, of uprooting and overturn- 
ing had come. It must be succeeded by that of repose, 
new crystaUizations, and growths; new ideas must orig- 
inate new policies. They could hardly be expected from 
the old conductors of the war. They were the most of 
them warriors, ministers and legislators of the war, having 
clear vision, fixed purpose, and great power and grasp in 
creating and using means. Their work was well and 
thoroughly done. What was the next wise thing seemed 
hardly to dawn on many minds. Stern, intent, narrow, 
and hence forceful, with frowning brows confronting the 
great rebellion, till the habit of mind and form of ex- 
pression were fixed also. It were easy to destroy. The 
hand which ruins can hardly restore. There now re- 



IN CONGRESS. — EUROPEAN TOUR. II5 

mained the great work of clearing the ground of the 
entire Repubhc, of the debris, the cost, debt, and ruin 
of the war. Disband and pay the army, adjust a pension 
roll, fund the floating debt, readjust the whole vast sub- 
ject of revenue, all the forms and sources of taxation 
and expenditure, search out the true basis of the mone- 
tary system of the country, govern the subdued States, 
provide a system of education, change and restore the 
currents and costs of war to the economies and condi- 
tions of peace. He Saw a parallel between the condition 
of the Republic at the close of the war, and that of Eng 
land at the end of the Napoleonic struggles. He read 
with great care the entire history of the period of her 
transit from Waterloo to her resumption of specie pay- 
ments, the course ana policy of Wellington, and con- 
trasted them with those of Peel and of those who held 
with him j mastered the literature of political economy and 
the history of banking ; and when asked by the re-elected 
Colfax, what place he should assign him to, he answered 
that he preferred a place on the ways and means. With 
much remonstrance, the amazed speaker complied. He 
had favorably attracted the notice of Justin S. jSIorrell, now 
to be placed at the head of the committee, who requested 
that he might be assigned a place with him. Aside from 
his great value in the committee room, Morrell wanted 
the aid of his unsurpassed power to master, and of his 
clear and forcible exposition in committee of the whole 
and in the house. Roscoe Conkling, who had returned to 
the house, was on the same committee, as was also John 
Wentworth, who now appeared after years of absence. 



Il6 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

Of old and distinguished members thus returning after 
many years, may be mentioned Delano, Bingham and 
Shellabarger. Of the new, were Rutherford B. Hayes, 
William Lawrence, Henry J. Raymond, Thomas W. 
Ferry, General Haibert E. Paine, Robert S. Hale, and 
others. 

This session is memorable for the overhauling and re- 
construction of all the revenue legislation, the elabora- 
tion and enactment of the great statutes of taxation. 
The internal revenue law was revised and remodelled 
anew, with delegations representing all the trades and 
interests. The whiskey crowd, the brewers, the tobacco 
manufacturers of all sorts, men, craftsmen of all the 
trades, whose products were to be subjected to the ser- 
vitudes of the revenue. Then came the tariff, upon 
which men never have agreed, and never will agree. 

Below the great schools of protection and free trade 
were infinite subdivisions of men, who disagreed as to 
what free trade practically meant, and what was protec- 
tion ; with every shade from high to low tariff, and here 
again come the trades and artisans. There was the awful 
debt to be met, and 1866 saw twelve hundred and ninety 
millions of dollars appropriated for all purposes. Does 
history parallel this in the expenditures of any nation for 
a fiscal year? In all these labors, the strong, clear, well- 
advised mind of Garfield, luminously and profitably 
worked, and his firm, strong hand, made itself felt in the 
fashioning of this legislation. Thus employed the four- 
teenth of April, 1 866, came upon the over-busy house, 
unconscious that it was the anniversary of the assassina- 



IN CONGRESS. EUROPEAN TOUR. II7 

tion of Lincoln. President Johnson had been more 
thoughtful. He issued an order to close the great de- 
partments in commemoration of the event. The execu- 
tion of the order reminded the members of the house of 
their own proper duty. Fifteen minutes before twelve, 
when the house would be called to order, Colfax rushed 
breathless into the committee room, where Garfield was 
hard at work, and told him that when the house was 
called to order he, the general, was to rise, remind 
the house of the solemn anniversary and move an ad- 
journment, and deliver a happy, touching and eloquent 
speech. 

If there is anything in the world that would greatly 
dismay a public speaker, no matter how gifted, original 
and eloquent, it would be such an announcement. Few 
can, with ample preparation, do these things well. No 
one would attempt on such notice, were escape open to 
him. 

Garfield, lost in figures and tables, looked up in dis- 
may. The uncovering of a rebel battery in his front 
would have startled him less. Colfax turned everybody 
out of the room, went out himself, and placed a messen- 
ger at the door. Fifteen minutes ! The imprisoned re- 
presentative turned himself in on his roomy brain; 
started the imps of memory in all directions for stores 
which never did fail, awoke fancy, pathos and reverence. 
He was at his desk as the prayer ended and the gavel 
fell, when he arose and said: 

Mr. Speaker, I desire to move that this house do now adjourn. .And 
before the vote upon that motion is taken I desire to say a few words. 



Il8 LIKE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

This day, Mr. Speaker, will be sadly memorable so long as this Na- 
tion shall endure, which God grant may be "till the last syllable of re- 
corded time," when the volume of human history shall be sealed up 
and delivered to the omnipotent Judge. 

In all future time, on the recurrence of this day, I doubt not that the 
citizens of this Republic will meet in solemn assembly to reflect on the 
life and character of Abraham Lincoln, and the awful, tragic event of 
April 14, 1865 — an event unparalleled in the history of nations, cer- 
tainly unparalleled in our own. It is eminently proper that this house 
should this day place upon its records a memorial of that event. 

The last five years have been marked by wonderful developments of 
individual character. Thousands of our people before unknown to 
fame, have taken their places in history, crowned with immortal honors. 
In thousands of humble homes are dwelling heroes and patriots whose 
names shall never die. 

But greatest among all these great developments were the character 
and fame of Abraham Lincoln, whose loss the Nation still deplores. 
His character is aptly described in the words of England's great laure- 
ate — written thirty years ago — in which he traces the upward steps of 

some 

" Divinely gifted man, 
Whose life in low estate began, 
And on a simple village green; 

"Who breaks his birth's invidious bar. 
And grasps the skirts of happy chance. 
And breasts the blows of circumstance. 
And grapples with his evil star; 

" Who makes his force by merit known. 
And lives to clutch the golden keys 
To mould a mighty State's decrees, 
And shape the whisper of the throne; 

" And moving up from high to higher, 
Becomes on Fortune's crowning slope. 
The pillar of a people's hope, 
The center of a world's desire." 
Such a life and character will be treasured forever as the sacred jsos- 
session of the American people and of mankind. 



IN CONGRESS. EUROPEAN TOUR. I 19 

In the great drama of the rebellion, there were two acts. The first 
was the war with its battles and sieges, victories and defeats, its suffer- 
ings and tears. 

That act was closing one year ago to-night, and, just as the curtain 
was lifting on the second and final act — the restoration of peace and 
liberty — ^just as the curtain was rising upon new characters and new 
events, the evil spirit of the rebellion, in the fury ot despair, nerved and 
directed the hand of an assassin to strike down the chief character in 
both. 

It was no one man who killed Abraham Lincoln ; it was the embodied 
spirit of treason and slavery, inspired with fearful and despairing hate, 
that struck him down, in the moment of the nation's supremest joy. 

Sir, there are times in the history of men and nations, when they 
stand so near the veil that separates mortals from the immortals, time 
from eternity, and men from their God, that they can almost hear the 
beatings and feel the pulsations of the heart of the Infinite. 

Through such a time has this Nation passed. When two hundred 
and fifty thousand brave spirits passed from the field of honor, through 
that thin veil, to the presence of God, and when at last its parting 
folds admitted the martyr President to the company of these dead he- 
roes of the Republic, the nation stood so near the veil, that the whispers 
of God were heard by the children of men. 

Awe-stricken by His voice, tlie American people knelt in tearful 
reverence and made a solemn covenant with Him and with each other, 
that this Nation should be saved from its enemies, that all its glories 
should be restored, and, on the ruins of slavery and treason, the temples 
of freedom and justice should be built and should survive forever. 

It remains for us, consecrated by that great event, and under a 
covenant with God, to keep that faith, to go forward in the great work 
until it shall be completed. 

Following the lead of that great man, and obeying the high behests 
of God, let us remember that — 

" He has sounded forth a trumpet that shall never call retreat ; 
He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment seat ; 
Be swift, my soul, to answer Him, be jubilant my feet; 

For Gou is marching on." ^ 

I move, sir, that this house do now adjourn. 



I20 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

The motion was unanimously agreed to ; and thereupon (at fifteen 
minutes after twelve o'clock) the house adjourned. 

This is justly regarded as one of the most felicitous 
things of the kind in our congressional history. Perhaps 
the recalling of the lines of Tennyson, seemingly written 
and laid away for the occasion, was an effort of memory 
little short of inspiration. He had not seen them for 
years. No book, was at hand ; no tongue to recall. 
They leaped from their ambush in his brain, and gave 
themselves to the tender and solemn office of an offering 
never more fitly made than now. 

The general's rendering was as if the words were a 
sudden inspiration, now first finding utterance in their 
own most fitting expression ; rapt, tender, tremulous, and 
with loving awe. They were taken down with the speech. 
On comparison with the authorized text, there was the 
single error of a word. 

The celebrated case of Milligan and others is referable 
to this jieriod. It will be brought fully under notice for 
another purpose. In the order of time, and as illustra- 
tive of character, it must receive mention here. 

The secret history of the provost marshal general's 
office at Washington, and the connection of the war office 
of which it was an agency with it, never can be written ; 
perhaps, never should be. It is known, however, that 
the Old Capitol and Carroll prisons were thronged with 
men against whom no charges were ever preferred, who 
were never tried, and yet who were arbitrarily detained 
against remonstrance, in spite of entreaty, and without 
a shadow of constitutional authoritv. The writ of habeas 



IN CONGRESS. EUROPEAN TOUR. 121 

corpus was suspended, and there were no legal means of 
relief. In this condition, a statement of the prisons, with 
many details, was sent to the military committee, which 
so startled the generals at its head, that they went to the 
prisons, and made a personal inquiry, saw several of the 
prisoners, and heard their stories, which excited their 
surprise and indignation. On the next day Garfield 
offered a resolution demanding an inquiry. The house 
adopted it, and directed the military committee to make it. 
On the day following. General Garfield was detained from 
the house at its opening. When he entered, he found it 
listening to Thaddeus Stevens on his motion to rescind 
Garfield's resolution of the day before, which the old man 
denounced as a needless and mischievous intermeddling 
by a young man, with the management of the war office. 
Garfield replied with great spirit, stated the origin of the 
resolution, the petition, his personal inquiry, what he 
found; related in indignant terms the outrages upon 
Union men ; told the story of a Union colonel, wounded 
at the second battle of Bull Run, and denounced the 
great secretary of war as worthy of impeachment, and 
told the house to rescind the resolution if it would. It 
did not do it, but there was an immediate emptying of 
the prisons, which rendered inquiry useless. The daring 
of the young tribune, in thus bearding the terrible secre- 
tary, won the admiration of all men, and especially of 
Mr. Stanton himself, which was manifested in a strik- 
ing way. Meantime, Milligan and his co-conspirators 
were in prison awaiting execution, and the kind Lincoln 
was sorely perplexed. 



122 LIFE Or' JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

In this exigency Judge Black and one or two leading 
Democrats approached Garfield, laid the case before him, 
and asked him to appear in it before the supreme court 
of the United States. The defendants were poor, abject 
and odious, but their case involved the same great 
questions of right, constitutional law, and civil liberty, so 
promptly and effectively vindicated in the case of the 
Capitol and Carroll prisoners. He did not hesitate. 
His sense of duty in the defense of the principles in- 
volved, compelled him at any personal sacrifice and peril, 
to undertake the case, and he did. He prepared his 
great argument, printed his brief, presented the case, con- 
vinced the court, saved the wretched men, and restored 
to menaced rights the support of the law of the land.* 

During this session he introduced a bill to establish the 
national bureau of education. He secured a special 
committee for its consideration, and closed the interest- 
ing and important debate upon it June 8, i86S. The 
speech was full of the broad, just and enlightened nature 
of the man, and presents the views in favor of it, with 
an amplitude of argument and illustration, fortified from 
history and experience, which would go far to establish 
the reputation of almost any other man. 

The bill passed by eighty to forty-four, became a law, 
and for this the people of the United States are wholly 
indebted to the young professor of Hiram college. 

The necessity for subjecting Mr. Garfield's career to 
a more rapid treatment, in view of the many years yet be- 
fore us, is apparent, and my sketch must pass with but 

* See Chapter I, Part V. 



IN CONGRESS. EUR0PF:AN TOUR. 1^3 

slight glances at its more prominent points. I leave the 
residue of the Thirty-ninth congress without further refer- 
ence to him or it. 

EUROPE. 

In the summer vacation of 1867 Mr. Garfield was 
able to realize the dream of every intelligent Ameri- 
can, and visit Europe. He sailed from New York on 
the thirteenth of July, and reached that city, on his re- 
turn, November 6th of the ensuing autumn. With a 
just and tender appreciation of their mutual help and 
dependence, the husband and devoted wife had made 
their lives continuously together, and she lived with him 
at Washington, holding her proper place by his side, 
sharing his confidence and counsels, and going with 
him along the way of his rapid advance, herself develop- 
ing naturally and gracefully in the seemly form of per 
fecting womanhood, in the atmosphere and social circles 
of the capital. They carried with them and realized 
there the tenderness, warmth, and simplicity of their true 
home life. 

For this brief absence they made a careful disposition 
of the loved ones, and now this husband and wife, who 
have never ceased to be lovers, go away — they two, each 
having only the other, to stand side by side with a strong 
arm around a slender waist on the large steamer's deck, 
and, with a half-sense of bereavement, see the land and 
light of their home fade into night, and fall below the 
horizon, then turn to hail the new day, count the 
days, and look for the new and everlasting old shores, 
where they are to land — they two, and run, hand in 



124 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

hand, like wondering, wandering boy and girl, through 
Europe. I hold the young man's diary in my hand, 
and fancy I can see them, and it all seems very sweet 
and charming. v 

Here is what he says on the day they started: "When 
I entered Williams, in 1854, I probably knew less of 
Shakspeare than any other student of my age and cul- 
ture in the country. Though this was a reproach to me, 
I had the pleasure of bringing to the study of those 
great poems a mind of some cultivation and maturity, 
and my first impressions were strong and vivid. Some- 
thing like this may be my experience on this trip." Un- 
doubtedly it will. They were on the great "City of 
London." "At eight o'clock in the evening we caught 
the last glimpse of land." 

One hour on the high seas, when the land has sunk, 
brings all that can be seen at sea, unless storms or islands 
arise, baring sea-sickness. Of course, everything is novel 
and fresh to one capable of the vivid impressions of 
Garfield. The ocean, the sun, and, above all, the huge, 
throbbing ship, and its navigation, were new and pictur- 
esque subjects, the unusual, to be studied. We must pass 
over the Atlantic more rapidly, under our recent pledge. 
We wait for them at Queenstown and find the ship washed 
and scoured, and the passengers ready to land. Of 
course, the general got acquainted with everybody on 
board, and found something to like in everyone. The 
person he would not like would be unlovely to the 
odious; and we know they all liked him, though he is 
careful to say nothing of that. We remember he was a 



IX CONGRESS. EUROPEAN TOUR. I 25 

born sailor, and the voyage awoke all his old longings. 
On the ship's last day, I find this reflection: "Perhaps 
each human being has several possible characters in him 
which changed circumstances could bring out. Certain- 
ly life on the sea brings me out quite unique. Mine is 
as much a surprise to me as it could be to any other. I 
have purposely become absorbed in the parenthetic life, 
and have enjoyed it so much, that a fellow passenger said 
to 'Crete' (Lucretia), that I would certainly be sorry to 
land." He was greatly interested in testing the accuracy 
of the captain's estimate of his whereabouts, and rate of 
speed. The captain had assured him that he would see 
the speck of Little Skelligs not thirty minutes from six 
p. M. It was sighted at ten minutes to six o'clock of 
July the 24th. On the twenty-sixth they steamed up the 
muddy Mersey, and the general is moved to qoute: 

" The quality of Mersey is not strained." 

He may have been homesick a little. They visited 
and lingered about Chester, oldest and sole walled town 
of England. The general had great aptitude for becom- 
ing impregnated with the spirit of a place, and saw and 
felt with the fresh, unsoiled nature of a primitive man, 
which responded truly to impressions. July 28th, off to 
London — town of Whittington, lord mayor, and London 
bridge; stopped at the Langham, and found there 
Henry J. Raymond; went to the parliament house, and 
admitted to the gallery; heard Disraeli, Layard and 
others; surprised with the conversational, business- 
like manner of the speaking, marred by an almost 
painful hesitancy; went to the lords, where, sitting on the 



126 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

Steps of the throne, the future President listened to born 
law-makers, Lord Russell, Lord Malmsbury, and smaller 
lordlings, on the reform bill. "I was strongly impressed 
with the democratic influences nianifest in both houses. 
There seemed as much of the demagogue here as in our 
congresses," is his comment. "There is a constant ref- 
erence to the demands of the people." 

Next day did St. Paul's and Westminster, and again to 
the lords, with Senator Morrell, of Vermont; heard 
Cams, and also Cardigan, of the "light brigade;" later, 
took rooms ; again at Westminster, and then to parlia- 
ment; heard Derby, whose gout permitted his attend- 
ance; also Earl Gray. How these names take one back. 
Derby was the best speaker he had yet heard; saw 
Gladstone. Nexfday, August 2d, at the British museum; 
saw the remains of the Elgin marbles. Of course, he 
called upon Mr. Charles Francis Adams, and talked up 
home politics, which may have been interesting to 
hear; went to Hampton court. Such a reader of 
English history saw the places, and freshened his im- 
pressions. The next Sunday, went to see and hear 
Spurgeon, and gives an interesting account of him, his 
tabernacle, and people. Next day they went to the 
Tower, and then home through Billingsgate. They were 
very busy every day in London. The parliament house 
had charms for the politician and member of congress, 
and he managed to hear a good deal of indifferent 
speaking. He sj^eaks forcibly of it — of the leading men. 
He made a good study of Disraeli; also of Bright. He 
was quick to see and apprehend the lines and points of 



I\ CONGRESS. EUROPEAN TOUR. I 27 

these English statesmen. There is a good sketch of 
Gladstone. It is curious to think of the possible official 
relations of these remarkable men. Then follows a de- 
bate and "division."' August loth went to Leamington, 
and the next day to Stratford-on-Avon, where some good 
ramblings and musings were done. Many pages bear 
the notes. Such a man could not help his impressions. I 
must pass them. From there they visited various places, 
not on the usual beaten routes to Sheffield. August 
15th they were at Edinboro, visited Abbottsford, Holly- 
rood, the Heart of Midlothian, and all the points which 
were as fresh as if the way to them had not been beaten 
hard and smoth by previous visitors. There was Glasgow, 
the Clyde, and then Burns' cottage, and the "twa Brigs," 
and the general says he re-read Tam "O Shanter. I believe 
Morrell and Blaine were with them part of the time in 
Scotland. August 23d, sailed from Leith to Rotterdam. 
The passage over the North sea is well described; and 
the next morning they were in sight of the dykes, and 
soon after they were looking at Holbein's landscapes, and 
the men and women whom they saw wore the same 
clothes as in his pictures. August 27th, went to Brussels, 
thence to Cologne, and steamed up the Rhine. Read 
Childe Harold, and estimates Byron's poetry. Stopped at 
Mayence, thence to Frankfort, and on Baden, September 
5th, to Strasbourg, to see the cathedral and clock, then 
the Alps and Berne, next Lausanne and Lake Lucerne, 
more mountains, and then to Italy, then come the old 
names dear to history, and the romances of the medi- 
eval years and the renaissance, and so, to the still 



128 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

"spouseless Adriatic," and Venice, city of dreams, where 
her annual bridegroom perished centuries ago. Florence, 
and finally Rome, receptacle of things lost on earth, 
herself the saddest and greatest loss. Here all ways 
meet, all journeys end. 

What must be the impressions of such a man when he 
buys his last ticket for Rome, and takes his seat in a car ! 
To Rome by railroad ! What an anachronism ! Wiiat 
days those Roman days were! On page 217 I find a 
rude map — the Tiber, and the position of the Seven 
Hills. Childe Harold accompanied him to Rome. They 
reached there September 28th, and remained there until 
October ist, and left with an infinitely greater regret 
than he ever left home. Away by the blue Mediterra- 
nean to Leghorn, and by steamer to Genoa and Colum- 
bus, thence to Turin, and so on, and over the moun- 
tains, and finally to Paris, where, too, all roads intersect, 
and many end. Dear Geneva had been left out with a 
small pang. Paris, and it was the fourth of October; 
and already thoughts of home and hard work came upon 
the busy-brained man. Home and the babies were ever 
in the heart of his companion. There they found Miss 
Ransom, the artist, and many Ohio friends. It was still 
the Paris of the second empire, and they left it on the 
nineteenth. Fifteen days there, then by rail to Dieppe, 
and there they took a steamer for New Haven. How 
flat sounds our familiar names after spelling out and fan- 
cying the otherwise unpronounceable names of continental 
Europe. Fifteen days of reflection and ocean, recalling, 
comparing, and the western world received them. 



IN CONGRESS. EUROPEAN TOUR. I 29 

The eager boy and girl came back the grave and 
thoughtful man and woman, with a world of new images, 
some perfect, many broken, others vanishing shadows. 
They had touched the old world of magic and memory. 
It had laid its hand on them lightly, to be sure, but they 
were not just the same, though no one could detect or 
suspect the difiference. I close the little diary with regret ; 
regretting also that I have but traced its dead outline, its 
dry sketches. It details briefly, with a bright, brief episode 
of an interesting, busy life: presents little cabinet pictures, 
bits of warmth and color, to linger in the memory and 
my reader s fancy. 

He came back to find that an election had been lost; 
some lunacy had put that sham plank in the Repub- 
lican State platform, which, whatever it said, was popu- 
larly construed that the United States bonds should be 
paid in the national currency — greenbacks. It was always 
an abominable name; a fragmentary party has rendered 
it unendurable. The bonds were to be paid in paper, 
no matter at what discount. To the eradication of this 
pernicious heresy and lunacy which had smitten the 
entire State in his absence, he was henceforth to be 
consecrated. 

Jefferson, the county seat of Ashtabula, the old home 
of his great predecessor, Giddings, of Benjamin F. Wade, 
and of several conspicuous personages; a seat of culti- 
vated men, and the home of the Howells and Rowlands; 
also where the returned representative had warm friends 
and admirers, which he had seldom visited, tendered him 
that modern social invention, a reception, which he 
9 



130 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

accepted. Of course there would be some speech making. 
In the speech of welcome the platform was referred to, 
and it was more than intimated that his unqualified 
acceptance, or at least acquiescence, would be a condition 
of his continued public service. I know not that there 
was special design in it, it looked like that. His very 
clear and forcible speech of March, 1866, set forth his 
views, as then fixed and determined, and this was to be 
taken back or silenced. It was besides, not just the thing 
under the guise of courtesy and hospitality. Invite a 
man to a feast and pleasantly ask him to permit his host 
to poison his meat. They had forgotten Warren. They 
never forgot the lesson of this night. In his reply, cour- 
teously, to be sure, he never could be other, he exposed 
and denounced the policy of the platform ; told them 
that he would hold his seat on no such condition ; that 
the dogma was false, pernicious and fraudulent. In short, 
he administered a most wholesome lecture, which came 
near being a castigation. I w^as never advised of the 
social aspects of tnat festive occasion ; I presume it was 
enjoyable. Garfield is the most social and festive of 
men. With such a world — overrunning humor, wit and 
hearty good fellowship, as well as being the most mag- 
naminous and forgiving of mortals, the time must be 
hard which his presence did not make a good time. 

That ended this vacation, and with it we tag out the 
European episode. 

Mr. Garfield now went on to the regular long session 
of the Fortieth congress. It held an extra session before 
he went to Europe. To that we now return, and present 



IN CON'GRESS. — EUROPEAN TOUR. 131 

nn uninterrupted glance at the entire congress. It will 
be remembered that there was now not only no harmony, 
between the Republican congress and President Johnson, 
but open war. 



CHAPTER IV. 

FORTIETH CONGRESS. 

Extraordinary Character. — Impeachment. — Speech on the Military- 
Governments. — General Hancock. — Preparing His Presidential Can- 
didacy. — Arraignment of him. — Their Position now. — Speech on 
Impeachment. — The Currency Speech. — Arlington Oration. — Taxa- 
tion of the Bonds. — Reply to Butler and Pike. — Chairman of the 
Military Committee. 

The Fortieth congress was one of the most remarkable 
in our annals. It impeached the President, and sat more 
times than any under the constitution. It commenced on 
March 4, 1867, not in obedience to a proclamation of the 
executive, but in spite of him, and with the declared pur- 
pose of protecting the Republic from its executive. Its 
first session sat until July 20th, when it took a recess 
until November 21st, and sat from that date to the hour 
of the regular session. That session continued until 
July 27th, took a recess to September 21st, another to 
November loth, when it adjourned finally. 



132 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

The senate welcomed the return of Sunon Cameron. 
Fessenden was received at the last congress. Prominent 
among the new senators were Roscoe Conkling and Jus- 
tin S. IMorrell, from the house; Garrett Davis, from Ken- 
tucky, greatest talker of senators or common men; 
Charles D. Drake, ot Missouri, who was to fill an impor- 
tant place ; Oliver P. Morton, one of the great forces of 
that body, strong, fibrous, a moulder of measures and 
leader of men; Nye, of Nevada, a coarse wit, humorist 
and wag ; and some others. 

George F. Edmunds entered the Thirty-ninth. The 
house became enriched by the presence of General But- 
ler. It also received General Morgan, of Ohio. General 
Logan, who resigned his seat for the war in the Thirty- 
seventh congress, resumed it in the Fortieth. 

The session was not fruitful in the perfection of laws. 
Its main purpose was to watch over and care for the ex- 
ecutive, whom it impeached and tried, and passed some 
of its important acts over his veto. 

The regular session opened on the second of Decem- 
ber, and was but a continuance of the extra session in 
spirit and purpose. Obviously the pending contest — the 
first in our history, between the great Republican major- 
ity — in effect, the congress, the legislative departments 
and the executive — was to be pursued to a final issue, to 
the exclusion of many more important matters. This 
was in some measure due to the mere unspent momentum 
of the war. The great war leaders could not at once 
arrest it. They may have misjudged of the point at 
which its forces should be conducted off. The executive 



« 



FORTIETH CONGRESS. 1 33 

with a temper as unaccommodating, in utter disregard of 
the essential spirit of the constitution, seemed to place 
himself directly across the way of the representatives of 
the people and of the States. There was no effort to 
placate, no toleration, not even forbearance, on the part 
of congress, and so the collision came, and ended as it 
began. In the great future, when the air becomes clear, 
and the light white, and distance gives needed perspect- 
ive, the events of the struggle will be estimated, and the 
men adjudged. The great contest which, coming ere 
the great agitations of the rebellion had ceased, for the 
time re-convulsed the Republic. 

Of the last work of the Thirty-ninth congress, was the 
"act to provide for the more efficient government of the 
rebel States," passed over the veto. This it was which 
made them military departments, governed by a general, 
certainly the best governments the most of them have 
had since the war. This law came up for amendment at 
the regular session. The discussion of this amendment 
and of the act, covered about all the ground of the 
pending controversy. 

Mr. Ashley's resolutoin of impeachment had failed, 
but the matter was in no way even interrupted. Garfield 
voted against that. On the seventeenth of January, 
1868, in a forcible speech of twenty minutes, he gave 
his views of the pending situation, and it is a good spec- 
imen of how much a strong man can do in twenty min- 
utes. As showing his opinion of the main issue I quote 
a paragraph : 

"Some of our friends say, since the President is the chief obstacle, 



134 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

impeach him. As the end is more important than the means, so 
is the rebuilding of law and liberty, on the ruins of anarchy and 
slavery, more important than the impeachment of .Andrew Johnson. 

****** * 

"Let no man suppose that because this house did not resolve to 
proceed with impeachment that it will abandon the loyal men of the 
South to the tender mercies of the rebels, or to the policy of the Pres- 
ident and his party." 

This is the speech in which he calls attention to the 
course of a certain major-general (Hancock) of the 
Union army, while at the head of the department for 
the government of Louisiana and Texas, under the law 
referred to, of which, doubtless, much may be said. This 
passage is given in full : 

I will not repeat the long catalogue of obstructions which the 
President has thrown in the way, by virtue of the power conferred 
upon him in the reconstruction law of 1867; but I will allude to 
one example where he has found in a inajor-general of the army a 
facile instrument with which more effectually to obstruct the work of 
reconstruction. This case is all the more painful, because an otherwise 
meritorious officer, who bears honorable scars earned in battle for the 
Union, has been made a party to the political madness which has so 
long marked the conduct of the President. This general was sent into 
the district of Louisiana and Te.xas with a law of congress in his hand, 
a law that commands him to see that justice is administered among the 
people of that country, and that no pretence of civil authority shall 
deter him from performing his duty, and yet we find that officer giving 
lectures in the form of proclamations and orders on what ought to be 
the relation between the civil and military departments of the govern- 
ment. We see him issuing a general order, in which he declares that 
the civil should give way before the military. We hear him declaring 
that he finds nothing in the laws of Louisiana and Te.xas for a guide to 
his conduct. It is for him to execute the laws which he was sent there 
to administer. It is for him to aid in building up civil governments, 
rather than preparing himself to be the presidential candidate of that 



FORTIETH CONGRESS. 1 35 

party which gave him no sympathy wiien he was gallantly fighting the 
battles of the country. 

This is now his position confronting this accusing tri- 
bune of the people, a candidate for the same high place. 
It is seen that in this speech, General Garfield bears 
honorable testimony to the high character and military 
fame of the major-general. 

Then came another "act of usurpation" as it was 
called, on the part of the President, which led to formal 
articles of impeachment. These were thoroughly dis- 
cussed, and on the third of March Mr. Garfield ad- 
dressed the committee in his usually well-considered, 
fresh, strong way. He had not before deemed it expedi- 
ent to impeach the President, though he believed him 
guilty. There was now no alternative. The immediate 
case was the removal of Secretary Stanton, and the ap- 
pointment of General Lorenzo Thomas. The question 
turned on his power under the constitution, and the civil 
tenure act, of March 2, 1867, enacted for the special 
purpose of preventing the very or any similar act, by the 
executive. In this speech the constitution is scanned; 
the statute carefully and discriminatingly examined, and 
it was shown that Stanton was removed in violation of 
the law, and Thomas, meekest and most amiable of 
mortals, was appointed in violation of the constitution. 
It is difficult to see how either conclusion can be avoided; 
certainly not the first. The President was impeached and 
afterwards tried, with a result which thoughtful men antic- 
ipated, although thoughtful men did not agree as to its 
merits. The good and evil of it were perhaps balanced. 



Ij6 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

CURREN'CY. 

On the fifteenth of May, Mr. Garfield delivered his 
first exhaustive speech on the currency, which probably 
did as much as any single speech, to enlighten both con- 
gress and the country, on the nature and character of 
money, its paper relative, their ofifice, the laws which 
control their use — the whole brought out with breadth and 
clearness. Whatever of history and so-called science as 
illustrated by writers on political economy — all the liter- 
ature of the question — he had mastered and brought their 
united lights, made his own, to bear on the subject. The 
speech occupied two hours for its delivery. The house 
is true to itself. To one of its own men — one of its wise 
and modest children, who always respects it, and never 
kicks up rows in the family, it is kind and true. Here 
was its favored one with his great roomy head, full of 
wise, distilled knowledge, almost wisdom, with the 
gatherings of the world's experience, gleaned in far 
journeys to remote regions, by knowing hands, with 
wise and clear thought of his own. The inexorable 
Sphinx had propounded its riddle, and he was to instruct 
them how to answer it. They gave him his time. He 
used it justly, and to the profit of all. No one will look 
to my hasty work for a full statement of his doctrines. 
They are now part of the common thought, have crys- 
tallized into law, and command as well as instruct. Yet 
hereafter will be found a fuller statement of them. 

From the great and fierce warfare of the house, to 
sweet and peaceful Arlington, where, massed rank on 
rank, sleep the Republic's dead, what a change ! Here, 



FORTIETH CONGRESS. 1 37 

on the thirtieth of the ensuing May, General Garfield 
delivered the first of the annual commemorative orations. 
The choice was apt and the duty aptly performed. Not 
out of the broad lines of his daily thought was it, and 
it fell naturally in the order of his labors. The reader 
shall judge of this; the following is the last fourth, 
entire. 

And now, consider this silent assembly of the dead. What does it 
represent? Xay, rather, what does it not represent ? It is an epitome 
of the war. Here are sheaves reaped, in the harvest of death, from 
every battlefield of Virginia. If each grave had a voice to tell us what 
its silent tenant last saw and heard on earth, we might stand, with 
uncovered heads, and hear the whole story of the war. We should 
hear that one perished when the first great drops of the crimson shower 
began to fall, when the darkness of that first disaster at Manassas fell 
like an eclipse on the Nation ; that another died of disease while wea- 
rily waiting for winter to end ; tliat this one fell on the field, in sight of 
the spires of Richmond, little dreaming that the flag must be carried 
through three more years of blood before it should be planted in that 
citadel of treason ; and that one fell when the tide of war had swept 
us back, till the roar of rebel guns shook the dome of yonder capitol, 
and re-echoed in the chambers of the executive mansion. We should 
hear mingled voices from the Rappahannock, the Rapidan, the Chicka- 
hominy, and the James ; solemn voices from the Wilderness, and tri- 
umphant shouts from the Shenandoah, from Petersburgh, and the Five 
Forks, mingled with the wild acclaim of victory and the sweet chorus 
of returning peace. The voices of these dead will forever fill the laiid 
like holy benedictions. 

What other spot so fitting for their last resting-place as this, under 
the shadow of the capitol saved by their valor? Here, where the grim 
edge of battle joined; here, where all the hope and fear and agony of 
their country centered; here let them rest, asleep on the Nation's heart, 
entombed in the Nation's love! 

The view from this spot beats some resemblance to that which greets 
the eye at Rome. In sight of the Capitoline hill, up and across th 



138 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

Tiber, and overlooking the city, is a bill, not rugged nor lofty, but 
known as the Vatican mount. At the beginning of the Christian era, 
an imperial circus stood on its summit. There, gladiatorial slaves died 
for the sjjort of Rome; and wild beasts fought with wilder men. In 
that arena, a Galileean fisherman gave up his life a sacrifice for his 
faith. No human life was ever so nobly avenged. On that spot was 
reared the proudest Christian temple ever built by human hands. For 
its adornment, the rich offerings of every clime and kingdom have been 
contributed. And now, after eighteen centuries, the hearts of two hun- 
dred million people turn towards it with reverence when they worship 
God. As the traveler descends the .Apennines, he sees the dome of St. 
Peter rising above the desolate Campagna and the dead city, long be- 
fore the seven hills and ruined palaces appear to his view. The fame 
of the dead fisherman has outlived the glory of the Eternal city. A 
•noble life, crowned with heroic death, rises above and outlives the 
pride and pomp and glory of the mightiest empire of the earth. 

Seen from the western .slope of our capitol, in direction, distance and 
appearance, this spot is not unlike the Vatican mount; though the 
river that flows at our feet is larger than a hundred Tibers. Seven 
years ago, this was the home of one who lifted his sword against the 
life of his country, and who became the great imperator of the rebel- 
lion. The soil beneath our feet was watered by the tears of slaves, in 
whose heart the sight of yonder proud capitol awakened no pride, and 
inspired no hope. The face of the goddess that crowns it was turned 
towards the sea, and not towards them. But, thanks be to God, this 
arena of rebellion and slavery is a scene of violence and crime no 
longer! This will be forever the sacred mountain of our capital. Here 
is our temple; its pavement is the sepulchre of heroic hearts; its dome, 
the bendmg heaven; its altar candles, the watching stars. 

Hither our children's children shall come to pay their tribute of 
grateful homage. For this are we met to-day. By the happy sugges- 
tion of a great society, assemblies like this are gathering, at this hour, 
in every State in the Union. Thousands of soldiers are to-day turning 
aside in the march of life to visit the silent encampments of dead com- 
rades who once fought by their side. 

From many thousand homes, whose light was put out when a soldier 
fell, there go forth to-day, to join these solemn processions, loving kin- 



FORTIETH CONGRESS. 1 39 

dred and friends, from whose hearts the shadow of grief will never be 
lifted till the light of the eternal world dawns upon them. 

And here are children, little children, to whom the war left no father 
but the Father above. By the most sacred right, theirs is the chief 
place to-day. They come with garlands to crown their victor fathers. 
I will delay the coronation no longer. 

Thus elevated and refreshed, we return to the national 
arena. 

TAXING THE BONDS. 

It will be remembered that laws which created the 
various bonds issued by the government during the war, 
prohibited their taxation by all national. State, and mu- 
nicipal legislation; exemption was thus an inherent ele- 
ment of their existence; it was a property of theirs, and 
not an external and effaceable mark. Their taxation was 
of the class of assaults to which their payment in depre- 
ciated paper belonged. The proposition in various 
forms had been brought before the house by amendment 
to pending bills, and also by resolutions. The questions 
involved were the power to tax and the morality of so 
doing. Among the advocates of taxation were P>ed- 
erick C. Pike of Maine, who should have known better, 
and does now, and General Butler, of whom it is hard 
to say what he does or may know, in a straightforward 
way. They had hoth made elaborate speeches in favor 
of the policy. To these, jointly and severally, General 
Garfield replied on the fifteenth of July, in the course 
of which he gave an abstract of the English history and 
practice of taxation, which was necessary to dislodge 
positions fortified from alleged English methods on the 
other side, during which his opponents questioned him 



140 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

and took many issues, to conduct which, on his side, 
required that roomy knowledge in which a man can turn, 
knowing all the ground, and all the resources of both 
sides. Both were able, adroit, and skilful debates, and 
Butler, aided by clerks and secretaries, whom he always 
uses, generally has in hand all there is. I do not state 
the matter unjustly in saying, that in the play of authori- 
ties, precedents, historical instances and illustrations, Gar- 
field's opponents were worsted, as well as in dialectics, 
direct and conclusive. Garfield is the fairest of debaters, 
and one of the most just and generous of opponents. It 
cannot be claimed that his speech on this occasion put 
an end to this, or of the impish brood of bad faith and 
repudiation, the spores of which hung suspended in the 
air; but it placed it out of the field of practical enlight- 
ened discussion. The subject will find further mention. 
I have gone through with two sessions of this congress, 
and have not yet stated that Garfield was placed at the 
head of the military committee. The speaker insisted 
he must have the chairmanship of an important com- 
mittee, as a ribbon to his button-hole at the least. And 
there was no other, without injustice to men of longer 
service, and I have written in vain, if it is not apparent 
that no man living appeared less solicitous as to the 
place nominally assigned him. Well, he was chair- 
man of the military committee, and on the twenty-sixth 
of February, 1869, made his famous report on the re- 
organization of the army, long an imperative necessity, 
awaiting the hand of a master. It makes a closely 
printed document of one hundred and thirty-two pages, 



FORTIETH CONGRESS. I4I 

with an index. He called before him all the heads of 
the different departments of the army, quartermaster 
general, commissary general, paymaster general, surgeon 
general, as also the adjutant general, and all of the rest, 
among them General Hancock, and searched into and 
lit up every corner of the service, from the general down, 
and tabulated all the results, subjoined with a history of 
each department, from its organization to the day of the 
report; making thus a complete magazine of all the 
needed information on all the branches, as well as fur- 
nishing much curious matter, with a complete statement 
of expenditures for the fiscal j-ear. 

The Fortieth congress under the constitution ended 
with the third of March, 1869. 

The Republicans failed to secure the conviction of 
the President before the high court of impeachment. 
They had elected Grant to the presidency over Sey- 
mour, to which General Garfield contributed as largely as 
any single individual. 

In the vacation the Cincintiati Commercial sent a re- 
porter to Jefferson to secure his address on a memorable 
occasion, and he found time also for other work, to be 
mentioned elsewhere. 



CHAPTER V. 

BANKING AND THE CURRENCY. 

The Forty-first Congress.— Return of the South.— Accessions to the 
Houses.— Black Friday.— Investigation and Report.— The Census. 
— The Currency. — His Bill.— Speech.— Nature of Money.— Need of 
Banks. —Glance at his Later Labors. 

This congress was memorable for the return of the 
seceding States to their places under the constitution, as 
integers of the Union. Under the law, it assembled on 
the fourth of March, 1S69, inaugurated the President, 
raised its two flags over the two houses, and resumed the 
business of the Republic. 

In the house James G. Blaine was elected speaker, 
Mr. Colfax having been reduced to the post of vice- 
president. 

The senate received Carl Schurz to its chamber, also 
from the reconstructed States, Hiram R. Revells from 
Mississippi, and William Pitt Kellogg from Louisiana, 
and senators from other States. Georgia remained ab- 
sent. 

The accessions to the house, with the exception of 
Omer D. Conger, were more numerous than great, by the 
difference between number and size. Mr. Conger proved 
not only an able man, but, since Joe Root, no one with 
such a rasping wit has appeared in the house. 

Mr. Garfield was placed at the head of the banking 



BAXKIXG AND THE CURRENCY. 143 

and currency committee, with John Lynch, his second. 
Otherwise it was not above a good average. The first 
session Hngered to the twenty-second of April. 

BLACK FRIDAY. 

A noticable thing of the ensuing vacation was the 
Black Friday of Wall street, falling on the twenty-fourth 
of September. On the re-assembling of congress, a 
memorial concerning it, demanding action by that body, 
was presented, and referred to Garfield's committee. At 
the holiday vacation he went to New York ; became the 
guest of General McDowell, his friend, the command- 
ant of that department, where he remained incog. Se- 
curing an interview with a man having some information, 
and from whom he learned the name of one having 
more, he, by several intermediate steps, got up or down, 
to the immediate core of the matter. He finally secured 
an interview with J. B. Hodgkins of the gold board, who- 
managed to smuggle him into the gold room, where a 
committee was trying Speyer, the Israelite, in whom there 
was guile, and the then supposed author of the fraud 
involved, or one of the conspirators, who were. Here he 
remained, listening, remembering and writing down when 
he went away, and then returning for another hearing, 
until he was compelled to return to Washington. Then 
he sent the sergeant-at-arms to occupy his place, near the 
witnesses, who were subpoenaed and hurried off to 
Washington, the moment they left the gold room trial, 
and were thus prevented from being communicated with, 
till thev came to Garfield's hands, and were examined be- 
fore his committee. Among them were the reticent Jay 



144 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

Gould, as silent and inscrutable as Grant, the gorgeous 
and exjn-essive Jim Fisk, with diamond cluster and seal 
skin overcoat. His discourse sparkled with figures of 
speech.* An able report on the first of March con- 
cluded the investigation. 

So much of this as my limits permit is here found. 
It thus discloses the purpose and means employed, and 
reveals conspiracy against the business of the country, 
seemed to involve the highest officers of the Nation in it. 

On the first of September, 1868, the price of gold was one hundred 
and forty-five. During the autumn" and winter it continued to decline, 
interrapted only by occasional fluctuations, till in March, 1869, it touched 
one hundred and thirty and one-fourth (its lowest point for three years) , 
and continued near that rate until the middle of April, the earliest period 
to which the evidence taken by the committee refers. At that time, 
Mr. Jay Gould, president of the Erie railroad company, bought seven 
millions of gold, and put up the price from one hundred and thirty-two 
tD one hundred and forty. Other brokers followed his example, and by 
the twentieth of May had put up the price to one hundred and forty- 
four and seven-eighths, from which pomt, in spite of speculation, it 
continued to decline, and on the last day of Tuly stood at one hundred 
and thirty-si.x. 

The first indication of a concerted movement on the part of those 
who were prominent in the panic of September was an effort to secure 
the appointment of some person who should be subservient to their 
schemes, as assistant treasurer at New York, in place of Mr. H. H. 
Van Dyck, who resigned in the month of June. In this effort Mr. 
Gould and Mr. A. R. Corbin appear to have been closely and intimately 
connected. If the testimony of the witnesses is to be believed, Mr. 
Corbin suggested the name of his step-son-in-law, Robert B. Cather- 
wood, and Mr. Gould joined in the suggestion. This led to an inter- 



* When asked what became of the twenty-five thousand dollars paid 
by Gould to Corbin, with a pathetic wave of hands expressive of utter 
loss, he replied, "Gone where the woodbine twineth." 



BANKING AND THE CURRENCV. 145 

view with Catherwood, the object of which is disclosed in his own testi- 
mony, as follows: 

"I went next day to have a conversation with Mr. Gould and Mr. 
Corbin. and I found that the remark was simply this: That the parties 
could operate in a legitimate way and make a great deal of money, and 
that all could be benefitted by it in a legitimate manner. I satisfied my- 
self that I could not fill the bill." 
And again, (page 441): 

"Mr. Gould, Mr. Corbin, myself, and some other associates, had an 
understanding that we would go into some operations, such as the pur- 
chase of gold, stocks, &c., and that we would share and share alike." 
And, (page 441): "I declined to go into this sub-treasurj' business." 
On what grounds Mr. Catherwood declined to be a candidate does 
not appear. 

The parties next turned their attention to General Butterfield, and, 
both before and after his appointment, claimed to be his supporters. 
Gould and Catherwood testify that Corbin claimed to have secured the 
appointment, though Corbin swears that he m.ade no recommendation 
in the case. General Butterfield was appointed assistant treasurer, 
and entered upon the duties of that office on the first of July. 

It is, however, proper to state that the committee have no evidence 
that Catherwood's name was ever proposed to the President or secre- 
tary as a candidate for the position, nor that General Butterfield was in 
any way cognizant of the corrupt schemes which led the conspirators 
to desire his appointment, nor that their recommendations had any 
weight m securing it. In addition to these efforts, the conspirators re- 
solved to discover, if possible, the purposes of the President and the 
secretary of the treasur^• in regard to sales of gold. The first attempt 
in this direction, as e.xhibited in the evidence, was made on the 15th of 
June, when the President was on board one of Messrs. Fisk and Gould's 
Fall River steamers, on his way to Boston. At nine o'clock in the 
e\-ening, supper was served on board, and the presence at the table of 
such men as Cyrus W. Field, with se\eral leading citizens of New York 
and Boston, was sufficient to prevent any suspicion that this occasion 
was to be used for the benefit of private speculation; but the testimony 
of Fisk and Gould indicates clearly the purpose they had in %'iew. Mr. 
Fisk says (page 171): 



146 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

"On our passage over to Boston with General Grant, we endeavored 
to ascertain what his position in regard to finances was. We went 
down to supper about nine o'clock, nuending wliile we were there to 
nave this thing pretty thoroughly talked up, and, if possible, to relieve 
him from any idea of putting the price of gold down." 

Mr. Gould's account is as follows (page 171): 

"At this supper the question came up about the state of the country, 
the crops, prospects ahead, etc. The President was a listener; the 
other gentlemen were discussing; some were in favor of Boutwell's 
selling gold, iOld SSSU: opposed to it. After they had all interchanged 
views, some one asked the President what his view was. He remarked 
that he thought there was a certain amount of fictitiousness about the 
prosperity of the country, and that the bubble might as well be tapped 
in one way as another. We supposed, from that conversation, that 
the President was a contractionist. * * His remark struck 
across us like a wet blanket. 

It appears that these skilfully-contrived efforts elicited from the 
President but one remark, and this opened a gloomy prospect for the 
speculators; for Mr. Gould testifies that early next morning he was at 
the telegraph otifice, and found there one of his associates telegraphing 
to New York to sell out his stocks. 

Upon their return to New York, Fisk and Gould determined to bring 
a great pressure upon the administration, to prevent, if possible, a 
further decline in gold, which would certainly interfere v.ith their pur- 
poses of speculation. 

This was to be effected by facts and arguments presented in the 
name of the country and its business interests; and a financial theory 
was agreed upon, which, on its face, would appeal to the business in- 
terests of the country, and enlist in its support many patriotic citizens, 
but would, if adopted, incidentally enable the conspirators to make 
their speculations eminently successful. That theory was, that the 
business interests of the country required an advance in the price of 
gold; that, in order to move the fall ciops and secure the foreign mar- 
ket for our grain, it was necessary that gold should be put up to 145. 
According to Mr. Gould, this theory, for the benefit of American trade 
and commerce, was suggested by Mr. James McHenry, a prominent 
English financier, who furnished Mr. Gould the data with which toad- 



BANKING AND THE CURRENCY. . I47 

vocate it. This theory is exhibited very fully in the testimony of Mr. 
Gould (pp. 4 and 5), and of Mr. Fisk (pp. 171 and 172). 

Grant was followed to Newport in vain — something 
else must be done. 

If the impression could be produced that the secretary 
of the treasury would withhold gold for a month that 
would do. 

On the nineteenth of August the President passed 
through New York. The Times was to be used, and a 
seeming semi-official article was written, headed "Grant's 
Financial Policy," to be used as a leading editorial, its 
publication to be secured by indirect means. The Times 
was reached, and the article put in double-leaded lines, 
ready. The editor became suspicious. It was published 
in an amended form, with the original in a parallel col- 
umn, and failed. An effort on Secretary Boutwell was 
ineffective also. It so happened that he did decide to 
sell gold sparingly during September. Perhaps this de- 
sign was penetrated, and gold touched near 138, on the 
sixth. Gould purchased. His associates became alarm- 
ed, but he persisted. His means to force it up were 
various and curious. A pretense that the President had 
ordered the non-sale of gold in September was one 
means. That the advance of gold was the depression of 
the currency, should be kept in mind. At the middle of 
September Gould had gold at 135 and 136, and Gould 
was alone. He courted Fisk, who was coy, but became 
frisky. 

Fisk was told that Corbin had enlisted the interests of persons high 
in authority, that the President, Mrs. Grant, General Porter, and Gen- 
eral Butterfield were corruptly interested in the movement, and that the 



I4S LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

secretary of the treasury had been forbidden to sell gold. Though 
these declarations were wickedly false, as the evidence abundantly 
shows, yet the compounded villainy presented by Gould and Corbin 
was too tempting a bait for Fisk to resist. He joined the movement at 
once, and brought to its aid all tiie force of his magnetic and infectu- 
ous enthusiasm. The malign influence which Cataline wielded over the 
reckless and abandoned youth of Rome, finds a fitting parallel in the 
power which Fisk carried into Wall street, when, followed by the thugs 
of Erie and the debauchees of the Opera House, he swept into the 
gold-room and defied both the street and the treasury. Indeed, the 
whole gold movement is not an unworthy copy of that great conspiracy 
to lay Rome in ashes and deluge its streets in blood, for the purpose of 
enriching those who were to apjily the torch and wield the dagger. 

With the great revenue of the Erie railway company at their com- 
mand, and having converted the Tenth National bank into a manufac- 
tory of certified checks to be used as cash at their pleasure, they terri- 
fied all opponents by the gigantic power of their combination, and 
amazed and dazzled the dissolute gamblers of Wall street by declaring 
that they had in league with them the chief officers of the national 
government. 

Possessed of these real and pretended powers, the conspirators soon 
had at their command an army of brokers, as corrupt as themselves, 
though less powerful and daring. They opened an account for the 
"pool," which they styled the national gold account, hoping thus to 
strengthen the pretense that officers of the national government were 
interested with them. 

They gradually pushed the price of gold from one hundred and thirty- 
five and one-half, where it stood on the morning of the thirteenth of 
September, until on the evening of Wednesday, the twenty-second, 
they held it firm at one hundred and forty and one-half. Russell A. 
Hills, clerk for William Heath & Company, had bough seven millions 
for the clique. James Ellis, partner of the same firm, had bought for 
them si.x millions, eight hundred and ninety-five thousand dollars more, 
under orders to put up the price and hold it there. 

Woodward testifies that he bought eighteen miUions, of which ten 
millions were taken by Gould. H. K. Enos testifies that he bought ten 
millions. E. K. Willard testifies that he bought ten millions. Charles 



BANKING AND THE CURRENCY. 149 

E. Quincy, of Heath & Company testifies that he held over fourteen 
milhons. 

On the evening of Wednesday, the twenty-second, gold stood at one 
hundred and forty and one-half, and according to F'isk's testimony the 
conspirators held calls from fifty to sixty millions. Mr. Gould thinks it 
was not more than twenty-five millions, but his partner (Smith) testifies 
that they held from forty to fifty or fifty-five millions, in the purchase of 
which they had employed from fifty to sixty brokers. No better proof 
was needed that the natural tendency of gold was downward than the 
fact that it required these enormous purchases, with all the acompani- 
ments of fraud, to hold it three cents higher than it had stood sixteen 
days before. 

During the ten days in which these purchases were made, the con- 
spirators were disturbed by the movements of the secretary of the 
treasury. 

About the fourteenth of September it became known in New York 
that within a few days Secretary Boutwell would pass through the city, 
and that he had accepted an invitation to dine at the Union League club. 
It was noised about that the dinner was gotten up by parties short of 
gold, who expected to use the occasion to influence the secretary in 
favor of increasing his sales of gold, and breaking up the supposed 
clique. Mr. Gould became alarmed at the confident manner in which 
the secietary's intentions were spoken of, and solicitous as to what 
effect the bears and business men might have on the secretary's policy. 

He called on Coibin, and communicated his fears. The testimony 
shows that he distrusted Corbin's pretended influence. For nearly a 
fortnight he had called twice a day, and while studying the situation 
was narrowly watching Corbin's behavior. He knew that every cent of 
advance in the price of gold added fifteen thousand dollars to Corbin's 
profit from the gold movement, and that this fact might explain Cor- 
bin's pretense of knowing the President's purposes, and of being able 
to 'influence them. 

Corbin continued to assure Gould that there was no danger, and on 
the evening of the seventeenth of September it was agreed that the 
former should address a letter to the President, urging him not to in- 
terfere in the gold market by ordering or permitting sales from the 
treasury. During that night Corbin wrote a long letter on the subject. 



150 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

which was not considered worth preser\-ing, but was destroyed soon 
after it was received by the President. The testimony shows that the 
letter contained no reference to the private speculations of Corbin, but 
urged the President not to interfere in the fight then going on between 
the bulls and bears, nor to allow the secretary of the treasury to do so 
by any sales of gold. The letter also repeated the old arguments in 
regard to transportation of tlie crops. Its contents are exhibited in the 
testimony of both Corbin (page 249) and Gould (page 155). 

While Corbin was writing it, Gould called upon Fisk to furnish his 
most faithful servant to carry the letter. W. O. Chapin was designated 
as the messenger, and early on the following morning went to Mr. Cor- 
bin's house and received it, together with a note to General Porter. 
He was instructed to proceed with all possible haste, and telegraph 
Fisk as soon as the letter was delivered. He reached Pittsburgh a little 
after midnight, and, proceeding at once by carriage to Washington 
Pennsylvania, thirty miles distant, delivered the letter to the President, 
and, after waiting some time, asked if there was any answer. The 
President told him there was no answer, and he hurried away to the 
nearest telegraph office and sent to Mr. Fisk this dispatch: "Letters 
dehvered all right," and then returned to New York. 

Mr. Fisk appears to have interpreted the "all right" of the dispatch 
as an answer to the doctrine of the Corbin letter, and says he pro- 
ceeded in his enormous purchases upon that supposition. 

This letter, which Corbin had led his co-conspirators to trust as their 
safeguard against interference from Mr. Boutwell, finally proved their 
ruin. Its effect was the very reverse of what they anticipated. 

General Porter testifies, (page 448) : The letter would have been like 
hundreds of other letters received by the President, if it had not been 
for the fact that it was sent by a special messenger from New York to 
Washington, Pennsylvania, the messenger having to take a carnage 
and ride some twenty-eight miles from Pittsburgh. This letter, sent in 
that way, urging a certain policy on the administration, taken in con- 
nection with some rumors that had got into the newspapers at that time 
as to Mr. Corbin 's having become a great bull in gold, excited the 
President's suspicions, and he believed that Mr. Corbin must have a 
pecuniary interest in those speculations; that he was not actuated 
simply by a desire to see a certain policy carried out for the benefit of 



BANKING AND THE CURRENCY. 151 

the administration. Feeling in that way, he suggested to Mrs. Grant 
to say, in a letter she was writing to Mrs. Corbin, that rumors had 
reached her that Mr. Corbin was connected with speculators in New 
York, and that she hoped that if this was so he would disengage him- 
self from them at once; that he (the President) was very much dis- 
tressed at such rumors. She wrote a letter that evening, which I did 
not see. That, I think, was the night after the messenger arrived, and 
while we were still at Washington, Pennsylvania. 

Both Mr. Gould and Mr. Corbin have testified in regard to this letter, 
and they state its contents substantially as given by General Porter. , 

It was received in New York on the e\ening of Wednesday, the 
twenty-second. Late that night Mr. Gould called at Corbin's house. 
Corbin disclosed the contents of the letter, and they sat down to con- 
sider its significance. Both have detailed at length in their evidence 
what transpired between them that night and the following morning. 
(See Gould's evidence, pp, 156 and 157, and Corbin's evidence, pp. 
251 10253.) 

This letter created the utmost alarm in the minds of both these con- 
spirators. It showed Corbin that his duplicity was now strongly sus- 
pected, if not actually discovered. It showed GouJd that he had been 
deceived by Corbin's representations, and that a blow from the treasury 
might fall upon him at any hour. 

The picture of these two men that night, as presented in the evi- 
dence, is a remarkable one. Shut up in the library, near midnight, 
Corbin was bending over the table and straining with dim eyes to de- 
cipher and read the contents of a letter, written in pencil, to his wife, 
while the great gold gambler, looking over his shoulder, caught with 
his sharper vision every word. 

The envelope was e.xamined, with its post-mark and date, and all the 
circumstances which lent significance to the document. In that inter- 
view Corbin had the advantage, for he had had time to mature a plan. 
He seems to have determined, by a new deception, to save iiis credit 
with the President, and at the same time reap the profit from his specu- 
lation with Mr. Gould. He represented to Gould the danger of allow- 
ing the President any reason to believe that he, Corbin, was engaged 
in speculation, and said he had prepared a letter to the President deny- 
mg that he had any interest in the movement, direct or indirect, and 



152 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

said he must send the letter by the first mail, but that in order to send 
it, it must be true. He proposed, therefore, to Gould that they should 
settle the purchase of a million and a half by Gould, paying to him 
the accrued profits, which, as gold stood that night, would amount to 
over one hundred thousand dollars in addition to the twenty-five thou- 
sand dollars he had already received. 

Gould was unwilling either to refuse or accept the proposition. Fear- 
ful, on the one hand, of losing his money, and on the other of incur- 
ring Corbin's hostility, he asked a delay until morning, and in the mean- 
time enjoined and maintained secrecy in regard to the e.xistence of the 
letter. 

Gould went from Corbin's house to the office of the Erie railroad, 
still keeping Mrs. Grant's letter a secret from Fisk. Later in the day 
he disclosed only enough of the truth to make Fisk jointly responsible 
for whatever amount of money he should pay to Corbin. 

Mr. Gould testifies that the check was drawn, but never paid to 
Corbin. 

Mr. Fisk knew only of Corbin's nervousness, but Gould knew far 
more. He says that Corbin had deceived him in pretending to possess 
knowledge of the President's purposes, and of being in any way able 
to influence them. He saw the whole extent of the danger and the 
ruin which a treasury sale would bring upon him. New victims were 
prepared, and a new scheme devised to save himself. 

Gould's old partner, Belden, rushed upon the street 
and made immense purchases. He managed to induce 
Speyer to believe he was himself the broker for Fisk, 
Gould and others, with orders to buy. Others purchased. 

Gould says •' I was a seller of gold that day. I pur- 
chased merely enough to make believe that I was a bull, 
and Fisk was in the gold room offering bets that gold 
would touch two hundred. Gold that day closed at one 
hundred and forty-four. The conspirators held a meet- 
ing, had lists of all the dealers. They had calls for more 
than one hundred mihions. There were not fifteen millions 



BANKING AND THE CURRENCY. 153; 

real gold in New York, outside the treasury. Ever}' man 
who had bought or loaned owed them, and must buy it 
of them to pay with, and at their prices. More than 
two hundred and fifty prominent men and firms were 
short. They resolved to publish the list, demand one 
hundred and sixty for gold, and if settlements were de- 
layed later than three p. m. more would be required, 
but were advised that there was peril in that. It was 
then determined to push gold up still further the next 
day, Friday — day of doom. The name of Belden should 
cover the purchases. Heath's office was the head- 
quarters. 

Smith, Osborne, Dater, and Timpson, and other leading brokers of 
this clique, were to frighten the borrowers of gold into private settle- 
ments in their office, and Jay Gould, the guilty plotter of all these 
criminal proceedings, determined to betray his own associates, silent 
and imperturbable, by nods and whispers, directed all. He knew that 
day better than ever the value of silence, and as he testified to the com- 
mittee, (page 143) : 

• ' I had my own plans, and did not mean that anybody should say that 
I had opened my mouth that day, and I did not." 

Speyer was sent to the gold room and run gold up 
to one hundred and sixty, taking sixty million dollars. 

The clique needed vast sums of money so as to be able to pay for the 
gold that parties who declined to place margins in their hands might 
return to them. For this Gould had made, as he thought, ample pro- 
vision. He had some time before purchased a controlling interest in 
the Tenth National bank, and used that institution as a convenience to 
certify the checks of his firm. To this bank he wrote a letter the day 
before the panic, guaranteeing them from loss through certifying the 
checks of William Heath & Co. 

Russell A. Hills, clerk of Heath & Co. says, (p. 398): 

"He told me that the Tenth National bank had agreed to certity to 



154 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

an unlimited extent, day by day. A short time afterwards one of the 
officers of the bank came into the office of Wilham Heath & Co., and 
said that it was impossible for the bank to certify, as there were three 
bank examiners in there to prevent it." 

It is in evidence that on Thursday the bank certified checks to the 
amount of twenty-five milhons, and on Friday, notwithstanding the 
presence of the examiners, certified fourteen milHons more. 

While this desperate work was going on in New York, its alarming 
and ruinous effects were reaching and paralyzing the business of the 
whole country and carrying terror and ruin to thousands. Business 
men every^vhere, from Boston to San Francisco, read disaster in every 
new bulletin. The price of gold fluctuated so rapidly that the tele- 
graphic indicators could not keep pace with its movement. The com- 
plicated mechanism of these indicators is moved by the electric current 
carried over telegraphic wires directly from the gold-room, and it is in 
CNadence that in many instances these wires were melted or burned off 
in the efforts of the operators to keep up with the news. 

In the meantime two forces were preparing to strike the conspirators 
a blow. One was a movement led by James Brown, a Scotch banker 
of New York, and supported by many leading bankers and merchants. 
The situation of all those whose legitimate business required the pur- 
chase of gold was exceedingly critical, and the boldest of them, under 
the lead of Brown, joined the great crowd of speculative bears in des- 
perate efforts to break down the conspiracy and put down the price of 
gold by heavy sales. The other was a movement at the national 
capital. 

The President returned from Pennsylvania to Washington on Thurs- 
day, the twenty-third, and that evening had a consultation with the sec- 
retary of the treasury concerning the condition of the gold market. 
The testimony of Mr. Boutwell shows that both the President and 
himself concurred in the opinion that they should, if possible, avoid 
any interference on the part of the government in a contest where both 
parties were strugghng for private gain; but both agreed that if the 
price of gold should be forced still higher, so as to threaten a gene-^-al 
financial panic, it would be their duty to interfere and protect the busi- 
ness interests of the country. The next morning the price advanced 
rapidly, and telegrams poured into Washington from all parts of the 



BANKING AND THE CURRENCY. 155 

country, exhibiting the general alarm, and urging the government to 
interfere, and, if possible, prevent a financial crash. This was issued; 

"Treasury Department, September 24, i86g. 
"Daniel Buttekworth, Assistant Treasurer United States, New 

York: 

"Sell four millions ($4,000,000) gold to-morrow, and buy four mill- 
ions (4,000,000) bonds. 

"George S. Boutwell, 

" Charge to department. "Secretary Treasury. 

"Sent 11:42 A. M." 

The message was not in cipher, and there was no attempt to keep 
it secret. It was duplicated, and a copy sent over each of the rival 
lines. The one sent by the Western Union line was dated at the treas- 
ury 11:42, Washington time, and reached General Butterfield 12:10, 
New York time. That sent over the Franklin line was dated at the 
treasury 11:45, ^"d was delivered to General Butterfield at 12:05, New- 
York time. The actual time occupied in transmitting the dispatch 
from the secretary to General Butterfield, including messenger travel 
at both ends of the line, was eight minutes, the same over each line; 
but in the branch office of the Western Union company, at Washing- 
ton, there was a delay of eight minutes before the operator could get 
control of the wire. Its contents may have been heard in some of the 
telegraph offices in New York, by outside e.xperts standing near the 
instnunents, and thus the news may have been known in the gold-room 
in advance of its publication; but the evidence on that point is not 
conclusive. A few minutes before noon, when the e.\citement in the 
gold-room had risen to a tempest, James Brown offered to sell one 
million at one hundred andsi.\ty-two; then another million at one hun- 
dred and si.xty-one; and then five millions more at one hundred and 
sixty; and the market broke. About ten minutes afterwards the 
news came that the treasury would sell, and the break was complete. 
Within the space of fifteen minutes the price fell from one hundred and 
sixty to one hundred and thirty-three, and, in the language of one of 
the witnesses, half of Wall street was involved in ruin. 

It was not without difficuhy that the conspirators escaped from the 
fur)- of their victims and took refuge in their up-town stronghold — the 
oflSce of the Erie Railroad comjjany. 



156 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

During Thursday and Friday they had sold out, at high rates, a 
large part of the gold they had previously purchased, and had made 
many private settlements at rates ruinous to their victims. They at 
once repudiated all the purchases they had made through Belden, 
amounting to seventy millions, and it is evident that, either before or 
after the fact, they bought Belden"s consent to this villainy. 

The gold clearing-house, with its almost unlimited facilities for set- 
tling the accounts of gold gamblers, was suffocated under the crushing 
weight of its transactions, and its doors were closed. 

This admirable report carries the matter forward with 
amplitude of detail to conclusion. The blowing up and 
bursting of the bubble are here shown. It also appears 
that a congressional investigation in Garfield's hands was 
a very real thing. 

Toward the close of the Forty-first congress there 
arose between the two houses a grave controversy over 
the right of the senate to originate revenue bills. The 
house claimed the exclusive power over the subject. 
Able speeches were made on both sides. The question 
was not free from doubt, and never was directly settled. 
The bill out of which it arose went to a committee of 
conference, which disagreed. On the house report, on 
the last day of the session, Mr. Garfield made a speech 
covering the whole ground, prepared in his thorough 
way, which was accepted as the authoritative exposition 
of the claims of the house. 

During the spring session Mr. Garfield raised a special 
committee to prepare and report a plan for taking the 
approaching census, a work requiring a vast amount of 
unrequited labor, which could find no compensation in 
money or applause. His sub-committee spent forty days 



BANKING AND THE CURRENCY. 1 57 

of the vacation, between the sessions, in elaborating his 
plan. At the request of the American Social Science 
association, he delivered an elaborate address before it 
on this subject, on the twenty-seventh of October, and 
he afterward produced his plan in a complete report, in 
the house, accompanied b}' a well-considered bill. With 
almost infinite care and pains he conducted this through 
the house, explaining, answering objections, and carrying 
It successfully through. He c(5!ild not follow it to the 
senate, where it was lost, and the ninth census was taken 
as happened. Not wholly lost was this bill and labor. 
Ten years later the bill was reached and reintroduced. The 
Forty-fifth congress passed it into law, and under its en- 
lightened provisions the agents of the government are 
now taking the enumeration and statistics of the Republic. 

THE CURRENCY. 

It is time our attention was given more largely to Mr. 
Garfield's labors in his appointed field of the currency. He 
had, on the fourteenth of March, 1S70, amply discussed 
public expenditures and the civil service, a kindred sub- 
ject, and, on the seventh of June, on his bill "to increase 
banking facilities, and for other purposes," he discussed 
*' Currency and the Banks," where he may sparingly speak 
for himself to my readers. See the clearness with which 
he sets forth the elementray truths on which his doc- 
trines rest, deepening the lines of his former speech 
already spoken of: 

Before entering upon the consideration of the bill itself, I ask the 
indulgence of the house while I state a few general propositions touch- 
ing the subject of trade and its instruments. A few simple principles 



158 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

form the foundation on which rests the whole superstructure of money, 
currency, and trade. They may be thus briefly stated : 

First. Money, which is a universal measure of value and a medium 
of exchange, must not be confounded with credit currency in any of its 
forms. Nothing is really money which does not of itself possess the 
full amount of the value which it professes on its face to possess. 
Length can only be measured by a standard which in itself possesses 
length. Weight can only be measured by a standard, defined and 
recognized, which in itself possesses weight. So, also, value can only 
be measured by that which in itself possesses a definite and known 
value. The precious metals, coined and stamped, form the money of 
the world, because when thrown into the melting-pot and cast into 
bars they will sell in the market as metal for the same amount that they 
will pass for in the market as coined money. The coining and stamp- 
ing are but a certification by the government of the quantity and fine- 
ness of the metal stamped. The coining certifies to the value, but 
neither creates it nor adds to it. 

Second. Paper currency, when convertible at the will of the holder 
into coin, though not in itself money, a title to the amount of money 
promised on its face ; and so long as there is f>erfect confidence that it 
is a good title for its full amount, it can be used as money in the pay- 
ment of debts. Being lighter and more easily carried, it is for many 
purposes more convenient than money, and has become an indispen- 
sable substitute for money throughout all civilized countries. One qual- 
ity which it must possess, and without which it loses its title to be 
called money, is that the promise written on its face must be good and 
be kept good. The declaration on its face must be the truth, the 
whole truth, and nothing but the truth. If the promise has no value, 
the note itself is worthless. If the promise affords any opportunity 
for doubt, uncertainty, or delay, the note represents a vague uncer- 
tainty, and is measured only by remaining faith in the final redemption 
of the promise. 

Third. Certificates of credit under whatever form, are among the 
most efficient instruments of trade. The most common form of these 
certificates is that of a check or draft. The bank is the institution 
through which the check becomes so powerful an instrument of ex- 
change. The check is comparatively a modern invention,- whose func- 



BAXKING AND THE CURRENCY. 1 59 

tions and importance are not yet fully recognized. It may represent a 
deposit of coin or of paper currency, convertible or inconvertible ; or 
may, as is more frequently the case, represent merely a credit, secured 
by property in some form, but not by money. The check is not money; 
yet, for the time bein.CT, it performs all the functions of money in the 
payment of debts. No greater mistake can be made than to suppose 
that the effective value of currency is not directly increased by the whole 
amount of checks in circulation. 

I would not for a moment lose sight of the great first necessity of all 
e.xchanges, that they be measured by real money, the recognized money 
of the world; nor of that other necessity next in importance, that bank 
notes or treasury notes should represent real money; should be of uni- 
form value throughout the country, and should be sufficient in amount 
to effect all those exchanges in which paper money is actually used. I 
would keep constantly in view both these important factors. But that 
is a superficial and incomplete plan of legislation which does not in- 
clude, in its provisions for the safe and prompt transaction of business, 
those facilities, which modern civilization has devised, and which have 
so largely superseded the use of both coin and paper money. 

The bank has become the indispensable agent and instrument of 
trade throughout the civilized world, and not less in specie paying coun- 
tries than in countries cursed by an inconvertible paper currency. Be- 
sides its function of issuing circulating notes, it serves as a clearing- 
house for the transactions of its customers. It brings the buyer and 
seller together, and enables them to complete their exchanges. It 
brings debtors and creditors together, and enables them to adjust their 
accounts. * * * * * * 

I find there are still those who deny the doctrine that bank deposits 
form an effective addition to the circulation. But let us see. A bank 
is established at a point, thirty or forty miles distant from any other 
bank. Every man within that circle has been accustomed to keep in 
his pocket or safe a considerable sum of money during the year. That 
average amount is virtually withdrawn from circulation, and for the 
time being is cancelled, is dead. After a new bank is established a large 
portion of that average amount is deposited with the bank, and a 
smaller amount is carried in their safes and pockets. These accumu- 
lated deposits placed in tjie bank, at once constitute a fund which can. 



l6o LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

be loaned to those who need credit. At least four-fifths of the average 
amount of deposits can be loaned out, thus converting dead capital 
into active circulation. 

But the word deposits covers far more than the sums of actual money 
placed in the bank by depositors. McLeod, in his great work on 
banking, says: "Credits standing in bankers' books, from whatever 
source, are called deposits. Hence a deposit, in banking language, al- 
ways means a credit in a banker's books in exchange for money or se- 
curities for money. " — Vol. 2, p. 267. 

Much the largest proportion of all bank deposits are of this class — 
mere credits on the books of the bank. Outside the bank, these de- 
posits are represented by checks and drafts. Inside the bank, they 
effect settlements, and make thousands of payments by mere transfer 
from one man's account to that of another. This checking and coun- 
ter-checking and transferring of credit, amounts to a sum vastly greater 
than all the deposits. No stronger illustration of practical use of de- 
posits can be found than in the curious fact, that all the heavy pay- 
ments made by the merchants and dealers in the city of .Amsterdam for 
half a century, were made through a supposed deposit which had en- 
tirely disappeared, some fifty years before its removal was detected. 
Who does not know that the si.x hundred millions of dollars of deposits 
reported every quarter as a part of the liabilities of the national banks 
are mainly credits which the banks have given to business men ? * 

If the analysis I have attempted to make of the principles which 
govern trade and business be correct, it will aid in ascertaining the 
wants of the country, and in determining what legislation is necessary 
;to meet the demands of business. 

Mr. Speaker. I shall venture to hope that those who have honored 
•me with their attention thus far, will agree that a mere supply of cur- 
rency, however abundant, will not meet t'ne case ; coin and currency form 
only the change — the pocket-money of trade. For the great transactions 
which the man-elous energies of our people are carrj'ing on they need 
and will demand that greater instrument of modem invention — that 
credit, currency, properly secured and guarded, which takes the forms of 
checks, drafts, and commercial bills. And this •brings me to the question, 
how is the country now supplied with currency and with these other 
facilities for the transaction of business? . 



BANKING AND THE CURRENCY. l6l 

It ought to be understood everywhere that the great injustice done to 
the western and southern portions of the country by the present dis- 
tribution of currency and banking facilities is so flagrant that it will 
not tnuch longer be endured; and if the wrong be not soon righted the 
overthrow of the National banking system is imminent. 

In entering upon this question I am met by our philosophical eastern 
friends, who say, "Put the currency wherever you please, and, like 
water on the top of a mountain, it will find its level; the distribution, 
therefore, makes no difference, for the currency will necessarily find its 
natural place." 

Mr. Speaker, I recognize the truth asserted, but insist that it is not 
applicable to the case in hand. I offer, in answer, the fact that the dis- 
tribution of banking facilities under the State system before the war is 
a better test of the wants of btisiness than the present distribution. 
Wuat are the facts? In 1860-61, in eleven of the southern and south- 
western States there were two hundred and ninety banks of issue, hav- 
ing a capital of one hundred and nineteen million, two hundred and 
twenty-three thousand, si.x hundred and thirty-three dollars, and a cir- 
culation of seventy-four million, one hundred and fifty-three thousand, 
five hundred and forty-five dollars, besides specie to the amount of 
twenty-six million, si.\ty-four thousand, five hundred and three dollars. 
Contrast that with the present situation. Trace a line from this capital 
westward, by the south line of Maryland, Pennsylvania, West \'irginia, 
Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri, and we find in the twelve States 
south of that line, whose population in i860 was nine millions, there 
are but seventy-one National banks, with a capital of only thirteen 
million, one hundred and seventy-seven thousand, five hundred dollars, 
and a circulation of but eight million, nine hundred and thirty-six 
thousand, one hundred and seventy dollars. Besides the increase of 
population, the four million slaves have now become users of currency. 
The people of those States have not more than seventy-five cents each 
of bank circulation. It is monstrous to pretend that such a distribution 
is either equitable or just. 

Thus he states the existing state of things: 

Ninety-four millions of ciu-rency reserves in the vaults, thirtv millions 
more than the law requires, money a drug at four and five per cent.. 



1 62 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

and all this because speculation in the gold room was dull, while mill- 
ions of our industrious citizens find it difficult to loan money at ten and 
fifteen per cent! 

It is marvelous with what patience the American people permit tliem- 
selves to be robbed and defrauded. 

These speculators are now waiting to see what financial laws we pass, 
as mv friend before me (Mr. Judd) suggests, and what influence they 
will have on the operations of the gold room. During this suspense, 
the gamblers of Wall street are letting their money lie idle, to see which 
way the tide will turn. Let Congress neglect to pass the legislation 
which is necessary to overcome the difficulties of the situation and we 
shall see the scenes of July and August, and September last, with its 
black Friday, re-enacted. I hasten to say that I by no means -indorse 
the notion that congress can determine, by any artificial mathematical 
rule, just how the currency ought to be distributed through the country, 
or how much is needed. But it cannot be denied that our past experi- 
ence and present situation demonstrate the outrageous injustice done in 
the West and South in regard to the currency. 

And now I inquire for a remedy. What shall it be? I^what means 
shall we supply the West and South with currency and banking facilities 
to meet the demands of their rapidly increasing population and wealth? 
Shall it be by an immediate increase of the volume of our paper 
money, to be followed by a greater depreciation of the whole mass, an 
increase of prices, and a great and disastrous disturbance of values and 
of all business transactions? For myself, I do not hesitate to declare 
that such legislation would be in every way ruinous to the interests and 
destructive of the credit of the country. I believe that the volume of 
our paper currency is already too large, and that a resumption of specie 
payments would reduce it. But, Mr. Speaker, whatever may be our 
individual opinions, it is clear that no measure of inflation can by any 
possibility become a law during the present session of Congress. 

The following resolution passed the Senate, without a dissenting 
vote, on the twenty-fourth of February last, indicates that no measure 
of inflation can meet the assent of that body. I quote the proceedings 
of the senate on this subject as recorded in the Globe of February 25th: 

" Resolved, That to add to the present irredeemable paper currency 
of the country would be to render more difficult and remote the resump- 



BANKING AND THE CURRENCY. 163 

tion of specie payments, to encourage and foster the spirit of s]:)eciila- 
tion, to aggravate tlie evils produced by frequent and sudden fluctua- 
tions of values; to depreciate the credit of the natioii, and to check the 
healthful tendency of -legitimate business to settle down upon a safe 
and permanent basis ; and therefore, in the opinion of the senate, the 
existing volume of such currency ought not to be increased. 

The \'ice-President. Is there objection to the present consideration 
of the resolution ? 

"Mr. Sherman. I hope not. Let it pass. 

"Mr. Sumner. Let it pass. 

"The \'ice-President. The chair hears no objection to the present 
consideration of the resolution, and it is before the senate. 

"The resolution was agreed to." 

It is equally clear that no measure for the resumption of specie pay- 
ment that includes contraction of the currency as one of its provisions 
can pass this house during the present congress. Shut up within these 
limitations, practically forbidden either to increase or diminish the 
volume of the currency, the committee on banking and currency were 
instructed by the house of repsesentatives February 21, 1870, to per- 
form the duty described in the following resolution : 

Resolved, That in the opinion of the house the business interests of 
the country require an increase in the volume of the circulating cur- 
rency, and the committee on banking and currency are instructed to 
report to the house at as early a day as practicable a bill increasing the 
currency to the amount of at least fifty million dollars. 

Under these circumstances the duty of the committee w\is very diffi- 
cult to perform. Shut up between Scylla on the one side and Charyb- 
dis on the other, and propelled by this peremptory resolution, what 
could the committee do ? It must give more banking facilities. It 
must give more circulating currency. But it must neither increase nor 
decrease the \olume of the currency. * * * ♦ 

Thus he unfolds his bill and remedy: 

This bill is the result of a compromise of many differences of o])in- 
ion, and perhaps suits no member of the committee in all its features ; 
vet, on the w-hole, they believe it will give the needed relief, with the 
least disturl>ance to the business of the country, and without injury to 
the public credit. 



164 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

I now invite the attention of the house to its provisions. It aims at 
two leading objects : To provide for a more equitable distribution of 
the currency without contraction or inflation, and without increasefl 
expense to the government; and to provide for free banking on a spe- 
cie basis. 

Tiie first of these objects the bill proposes to reach by the provisions 
of the first six and the last three sections of the bill. The second 
object is provided for in tlie remaining sections, being sections seven, 
eight, and nine.- 

The provisions for the more equitable distrilnition of the currency 
and the increase of banking facilities are the following : 

First. The issue of ninety-five million dollars of national bank notes 
in States having less than their proper portion. 

Second. The cancellation and retirement of the three per cent, cer- 
tificates, which now amount in round numbers to forty-five million 
five hundred thousand dollars, and the cancellation and retirement of 
thirty-nine million five hundred thousand dollars of United States 
notes. 

Third. When the whole amount of the ninety -fi\e million dollars 
of additional notes shall have been issued, circulation shall then be 
withdrawn from States having an excess, and distributed to States 
being deficient, in such sums as may be required, not exceeding in the 
aggregate twenty-five million dollars. 

After developing the scope of the measure, he is con- 
strained to say pensively: 

I wish I were able to demonstrate also that there is no inflation in 
this bill; and here is the feature most unsatisfactory to me. For four 
years past I have pleaded for some practical legislation, looking toward 
a gradual and safe return to specie payments. It has been clear to my 
mind that resumption was impossible so long as the present volume of 
inconvertible currency is maintained. I have therefore strenuously op- 
posed all attempts to increase its volume. But deeply impressed with 
the necessity of giving more equal facilities to the West and South, and 
relieving the National bank system from the odium which the present 
unequal distribution brings upon it, I have consented, with reluctance, 
to this feature of the pending bill, believing that tlie benefits conferred 



BANKING AND THE CURRENCY. 1 65 

bv it will be greater than the evils that will result from the measure of 
inflation it contains. 

The actual incVease of circulating notes which it authorizes is about 
thirteen million dollars; but the great increase of credit currency in the 
form of checks and drafts will, in my judgment, result in a very consid- 
eral)le expansion of paper credits. I cannot, in justice to myself, let 
this feature of the bill pass without expressing regret that the state of 
opinion in the house and country requires its enactment. 

And thus he deals with inflation and congressional 
meddling with the currency. 

But some gentlemen say, "Increase the greenback currency; issue 
linore; it is popular; it is safe; it is cheap; give it liberally and satisfy 
the wants of the country." This brings us to the question whether we 
will have the National bank currency or a currency issued directly by 
the government. All those who believe that the national banks should 
be overthrown, and that the government should itself become the man- 
ufacturer of the currency of the country, will doubtless oppose this bill 
in all its provisions. There are a few gentlemen, whose opinions I very 
greatly respect, who believe such a substitution ought to take place. I 
disagree with them for the following reasons; 

In the first place it is the e.xperience of all nations, and it is the 
almost unanimous opinion of eminent statesmen and financial writers, 
that no nation can safely undertake to supply its people with a paper 
currency issued directly by the government. And, to apply that prin- 
ciple to our own country, let me ask if gentlemen think it safe to sub- 
ject any political party who may be in power in this government to the 
great temptation of over-issues of paper money in lieu of taxation.' In 
times of high political excitement, and on the eve of a general election, 
when there might be a deficiency in the revenues of the country, and 
congress should find it necessary to levy additional taxes, the tempta- 
tion would be overwhelming to supply the deficit by an increased issue 
of paper money. Thus the whole business of the country, the value of 
all contracts, the prices of all commodities, the wages of labor, would 
depend upon a vote of congress. For one, I dare not trust the great 
industrial interests of this country to such uncertain and hazardous 
chances. 

But even if congress and the Administration should be always supe- 



1 66 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

rior to such political temptations, still I affirm, in the second place, 
that no human legislature is wise enough to determine how much cur- 
rency the wants of this country require. Test it in this house to-day. 
Let every member mark down the amount which he believes the busi- 
ness of the country requires, and who does not know that the amounts 
will vary by hundreds of millions? 

But a third objection, stronger even than the last, is this: that such a 
currency possesses no power of adapting itself to the business of th.e 
country. Suppose the total issues should be five hundred millions, or 
seven hundred millions, or any amount you please; it might be abund- 
ant for spring and summer, and yet when the great body of agricultural 
products were moving off to market in the fall, that amount might be 
totally insufficient. Fix any value you please, and if it be just sufficient 
at one period, it may be redundant at another, or insufficient at 
another. No currency can meet the wants of this country unless it is 
founded directly upon the demands of business, and not ujion the 
caprice, the ignorance, the political selfishness, of any jDarty in power. 
What regulates now the loans and discounts and credits of our 
National banks? The business of the country. The amount increases 
or decreases, or remains stationary, as business is fluctuating or steady. 
This is a natural form of exchange, based upon the business of the 
country and regarded by its changes. And when that happy day 
arrives when the whole volume of our currency is redeemable in gold 
at the will of the holder, and recognized by all nations as equal to 
money, then the whole business of banking, the whole volume of cur- 
rency, the whole amount of credits, whether in the form of checks, 
drafts, or bills, will be regulated by the same general law — the business 
of the country. The business of the country is like the level of the 
ocean, from which all measurements are made of heights and depths. 
Though tides and currents may for a time disturb, and tempests vex 
and toss its surface, still, through calm and storm the grand level rules 
all its waves and lays its measuring-lines on every shore. So the busi- 
ness of the country, which, in the aggregated demands of the people 
for exchange of values, marks the ebb and flow, the rise and fall of the 
currents of trade, and forms the base-line from which to measure all 
our financial legislation, and is the only safe rule by which the volume 
of our currencv can be determined. 



BANKING AND THE CURRENCY. 1 67 

But there is another point to which I desire to call attention. What- 
ever may have been our opinions and wishes hitherto, since this session 
began the supreme court of the United States has made a decision 
which adds a new and important element to this question. The court 
has declared that the legal tender notes are not, and cannot be made, a 
legal tender for debts contracted before their issue. Now, I ask gen- 
tlemen to remember that my friend from Illinois Mr. Ingersoll] who is 
the champion of greenback issues on this side of the house, realized at 
once the importance and effect of that decision; for within two or three 
days after the decision was announced — I belie\e it was the \ery next 
day — he proposed an amendment to the cons.itution of the United 
States, providing that it should be lawful for congress to authorize the 
issue of treasury notes, and make them a legal tender in the payment 
of all debts, thereby admitting that he believed such an amendment 
necessary, in order that such an issue could be made. 

***** 

Mark the conclusive force of these paragraphs: 

There is another consideration which I desire to present to the house, 
and it is this: we are not permitted to choose between banks and no 
banks. We are not permitted to choose between a National banking 
system managed immediately by the officers of the treasury. The Na- 
tional banks exist now only because they occupy the field and the ten 
per cent, tax on State circulation prevents the issue of State bank notes. 

If we abolish the National banks, and undertake to conduct the busi- 
ness of this country by the issues of greenback currency, the influence 
of State banks and of banking capital will soon compel the repeal of 
the ten per cent, tax; and then will spring up again all the wild-cat 
banks against which the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Ingersoll] de- 
claimed so eloquently a few days ago. 

We are shut up, in my judgment, to one of two things; either to 
maintain, extend, and amend the present National banking system, or 
to go back to the old system imder which every State was tinkering at 
the currency, without concert of action and uncontrolled by any gen- 
eral law. Then banks were established under the laws of twenty-nine 
different States, granted different privileges, subjected to different re- 
strictions, and their circulation was based on a great varietv of securi- 



I 68 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

ties, of different qualities and quantities. In some States the bill- 
holder was secured by the daily redemption of notes in the principal 
city; in others by the pledge of .State stocks, and in others by coin re- 
serves. But as .State stocks differed greatly in value, all the way from 
the repudiated bonds of Mississippi to the premium stock of Massa- 
chusetts, there was no uniformity of security, and the amount of coin 
reserves required in the different States was so various as to make that 
security almost equally irregular. 

This is followed with a series of pictures of the explo- 
plosions of the State banking systems, already sketched, 
concluding with this: 

Thus it appears there were more than si.x thousand five hundred va- 
rieties of fraudulent notes in circulation ; and the dead weight of all the 
losses occasioned by them, fell at last upon the people, who were not 
expert in such matters. There were in 1862 but two hundred and fifty- 
three banks whose notes had not been altered or imitated. 

• The results of State banking are thus grouped and 
contrasted with the stability and usefulness of the Na- 
tional banks. 

In obedience to a resolution of congress, adopted January 7, 1841, 
the secretary of the treasury made a report, showing that from 1789 to 
1841 three hundred and ninety-five banks had become insolvent, and 
that the aggregate loss sustained by the government and people of the 
United States was three hundred and sixty-five million four hundred 
and fifty-one thousand four hundred and ninety-seven dollars. The re- 
port also showed that the total amount paid by the people of the 
United States to the banks, for the use of them, during the ten years 
preceding 1841, amounted to the enormous sum of two hundred and 
eighty-two millions of dollars. 

Startling as these figures are, they fall far short of exhibiting the 
magnitude of the losses which this system occasioned. The financial 
journals of that period agree in the following estimate of the losses oc- 
casioned by the revulsion of 1837: 



BANKING AND THE CURRENCY. 1 69 

On bank circulation and deposits $ 54.000,000 

Bank capital, failed and depreciated 248,000,000 

State stock depreciated 100,000,000 

Company stock depreciated 80,000,000 

Real estate depreciated 300,000,000 

Total $782,000,000 

The State bank system was a chaos of ruin, in which the business of 
the country was again and again ingulfed. The people rejoice that it 
has been swept away, and they will not consent to its re-establishment. 
In its place we have the National bank system, based on the bonds of 
the L'jiited States and sharing the safety and credit of the go\ernment. 
Their notes are made secure, first, by a deposit of government bonds 
worth at least ten per cent, more than the whole value of the notes; 
second, by a paramount lien on all tlie assets of the banks; third, th.e 
personal liability of all the shareholders to an amount equal to the 
capital they hold; and fourth, the absolute guarantee by the govern- 
ment to redeem them at the national treasury if the banks fail to do so. 
Instead of seven thousand different varieties of notes, as in the State 
system, we have now but ten \arieties, each uniform in character and 
appearance. Like our flag, they bear the stamp of nationality, and are 
honored in every part of the L'nion. 

Now, I do not speak for the banks; I have no personal interest in 
them; but I speak for the interests of trade and the business of the 
country, which demand that no measure shall pass this house which 
may rudely shock those interests. These twenty-five million dollars, 
which are not likely soon to be recjuired, will be taken when needed, 
from States having a great surplus. About nine million dollars will 
come from the banks of New York that have over one million dollars 
of circulation each, and the balance will come from about eighty-four 
banks in three other States which have still a great excess above their 
proper proportion. I shall reserve for a later period in this discussion 
my remarks on the funding provision of this bill embodied in the third, 
fourth, and fifth sections. 

I thank the house for its indulgence and the patient attention with 
which I have been honored. 

Thus dismembered, we produce but broken fragments 



I-JO LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

of this massive production, simple and severe in its out- 
lines and solidity, like a doric temple, and as enduring. 
This was in i860. Many years were to intervene, much 
labor, much exposition, by the clear, far-seeing financier, 
whose career we are yet to trace, beginning on this sub- 
ject in the house, in March, 1866, casting down his gage 
to his own people in Jefferson in 1867, and covering a 
part of the field by the speech just brought to the read- 
er's notice. 

Again on the floor January 23, 1872, and in March, 
1874, and most effectively in April following. Finally, 
the great measure authorizing resumption became a law, 
which had to be defended against all comers, and never 
more ably than by him November 16, 1877. Then in 
the form of fiat money, in reply to Mr. Kelly, in March, 
1878, and so in his own State in the great campaigns, 
and where alone he fought the battle in the silver phase 
of the money-hued contest afterward. By special re- 
ciuest, he wrote a strong exposition, with ample historical 
illustration, in the Atlantic Monthly of February, 1876. 
He made a great speech at Chicago, and another in old 
Faneuil, in Boston. Both were pronounced great, and 
those who heard either pronounced it greater than the 
other. And thus largely has he borne the burdens of 
this great multiform issue, to the consummation of the 
labors of himself and the band of the sagacious, far-see- 
ing, steady statesmen who wrought with him, and which 
now, in the leisure of the prosperity thus secured to the 
country, his enemies find time and opportunity to assail 
him. 



CHAPTER VI. 

POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

The Tarift". — Politics at Williams. — Free Trade. — Protection. — His 
Williams Speech. — Speech of April, 1870. — Elementary Prices. — 
E.xpenditure and Prices. — High home prices close the Foreign Mar- 
ket. — Reduction of Prices. — Internal Revenue and the Tariff. — 
Speech of 1872. — Speech on .Sugar Tariff, 1879. — Subject exhaust- 
ively treated. — Hoop Iron. ^Transportation. — The Locomoti\e. — 
Railroad System considered. 

Certainly political econom}- is not an exact science, 
nor is scarcely any branch of it. Like our common law, 
its texts are clear and its rules certain. The facts depend 
on human testimonies, and hence are the most uncertain 
of things. This is charged against the law as a defect, 
residing in itself, when it consists almost entirely in the 
difiticulty of ascertaining the facts. The practical appli- 
cation of the doctrines of either the two schools of polit- 
ical economy, to industries and trade, encounter the same 
difficulty, in an exaggerated degree. The determining 
the conditions of things, and ];roperly estimating results 
under given rules, by which servitudes are laid upon or 
omitted from given productions is m.ost difficult. So 
what is meant by free trade, is sometimes in practice 
not clearly defined. A slight duty leaves it freer than a 
heavy one, compared with which it is free. So what is 
meant by protection is clouded bv the same obvious 



172 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

uncertainty. Each under certain conditions seems pref- 
erable to the other. Can there be found a resting place 
which shall so far embody the best of the one, as to per- 
mit the existence in moderate measure, of what is good 
in the other ? Each school will declare this impossible. 

When at Willams, on the nomination of Fremont, a 
gathering of students called on Ciarfield for a speech. 
In response he declared that he had never voted. His 
horror of slavery was so great that he would unite with 
neither of the old parties, while the disunion teachings 
of the abolitionists, kept him from acting with them. 
With the Fremont men he could unite and did. So he 
was a Republican by birth as well as by instinct and 
reflection. 

Iri the class-room, the professor stated clearly the 
abstract theories of the free traders and protectionists, and 
called for an expression of opinion of their respective 
merits. Garfield ventured to say, that to him free trade 
seemed to be absolutely right, but, for the United States, 
protection seemed an absolute necessity. When called 
upon for a practical solution, he replied in effect that he 
would be a protectionist till he could become a free 
trader. I do not know that this is a key to his views 
and leadings in congress. That he early studied the 
subject thoroughly, and thought of it comprehensively, 
we know. 

On the first of April, 1S70, he delivered the first of 
any considerable speech on the tariff. He said that he 
felt the embarrassment of a man who was to add to the 
forty-two speeches already delivered in the committee (of 



POLITICAL ECONOMY. 173 

the whole house). It had been an able, searching 
debate. He quoted Coleridge's declaration that the 
human race had suftered more iVom abstract definitions 
than from war, pestilence and famine. He was not pre- 
pared to question the poet-philosopher's declaration. 

There were two practical points from which no wide 
departure was permissible. The needs of the revenue, 
and the wants of our industries. In a sea of abstrac- 
tions, these were very real, and ever present. Modern 
scholarship was on the side of free trade. 

Mr. Kelly, the champion of protection, denied this, 
and mentioned Henry C. Carey, and the acceptance of 
his teachings in Germany. Mr. Garfield admitted what 
was due to Mr. Carey, but insisted that if England was 
struck out, half at least of the light of civilization would 
disappear. Mr. Carey was in the minority. While what 
he stated was true, every modern nation had in some 
form enforced the principle of protection. He then 
presented a rapid and forcible review of the career of 
American industry. Like liberty, it had won its way by 
great struggles. The sketch of its colonial fortunes, like 
all his studies of English history, was very happy. He 
then defined and illustrated what he meant by American 
industry, and is forable, as he always is, when remitted to 
broad generalization. This brought him to the consider- 
ation of prices. The study of them requires a knowl- 
edge of whatever influences them. When the war 
begun, our debt sixty-five million dollars ; our annual ex- 
penditures, on an average for eight years, ninety-five 
million dollars per annum ; one year of the war consuniLd 



174 LIFE OF JAMES .A. GARFIELD. 

one billion, two hundred and ninety million dollars: at 
the end we owed three billion dollars. Prices advanced, 
and were highest in iS66. During the last four years 
(from 1S70) the ex-penditures averaged three hundred 
and sixty million dollars per annum. From 1S66 we 
have tended to the aiite belhim prices. The result — we 
have furnished a good market .or foreign goods, but have 
lost the foreign market for most of ours. Cotton and 
provisions only do well abroad, and exceed in value all 
our other exports. Before the war we exported manu- 
factures amounting to forty-two million dollars a year; 
during the war but thirty-three million dollars. He pur- 
sued this subject to our trade with Canada, the Sandwich 
islands, and, contrasting the years i860 and 1869, 
showed an exportation of seventeen million dollars for 
the first and five million dollars for the last. Our indus- 
tries need extended markets. "To do that, prices here 
must be so adjusted as to open to our trade more of the 
markets of the new world." They can now buy cheaper 
of foreigners. A further decline of our prices will finally 
bring that relief. Then the channels of trade will open. 
It will take many years. While we raise two hundred 
and fifty million dollars of taxes, prices can never fall 
to a standard of sixty million dollars of taxes. The leg- 
islation which does not notice this economic law will be 
mistaken. When prices descend to a rate where the 
laborer can still save on a smaller wage, relief will begin. 
The laborer cannot suffer by this; ultimately will gain. 
Congress has done much to reduce taxation, and thus 
reduce prices. In the Thirty-ninth congress, we reduced 



POLIT.CAL ECOXOMV. I 75 

the internal re\enue one hundred milUon dollars; in 
the Fortieth, seventy million dollars more. We simplified 
the tax, removed it from industr}-, and imposed it on vice 
and luxury. 

The large internal revenue tax on our own manufact- 
ures was met by an increase of duty on the foreign com- 
peting articles. Since we have removed this internal tax: 
we may well reduce the protecting duty. The war tax 
has disappeared. It is reasonable that the war tariff go 
also. Custom duties should be so adjusted as to avoid 
duplicate taxation. 

This furnishes but an imperfect outline of the unfold- 
ing of the principles on which the bill was framed. He 
then proceeds to a discussion of details, answering ques- 
tions, and making explanations. It is rare that a man 
with such grasp and power over great subjects, in their 
broad relations, has also such a mastery of details. No 
one ever escapes him, and from a full development of 
the large scope and design of an important measure, he 
at once descends, in an easy, graceful way, to the minut- 
est detail, and never leaves a question unanswered, or a 
detail unexplained. 

The tariff, internal revenue, taxation, in all their com- 
plex relations to home and foreign policies, became as 
much a specialty with General Garfield as the currency 
and banking; and he was at an early day received as au- 
thority upon the subject. 

Some aspects of the complex subject received so 
much light from his great speech of January 22, 1872, 
on public expenditure, that we must here refer the reader 



176 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

to the next chapter, and ask him to consider it in connec- 
tion with his views upon the tariff here briefly brought to 
notice. His speech of February, 1S79, on the sugar tariff 
bill is a copious discussion of the then interesting subject 
in connection with the broader and general one, and 
treated in his usual way. The reader should study it. 
After some introductory remarks he says: 

The pending bill, like all bills which relate to customs duties should 
be considered in its relation to four great interests: the revenues, home 
industries, foreign trade, and the interests of consumers. First, as a 
source of revenue for the support of the government, we are receiving 
about thirty-seven million dollars in coin per annum from duties on 
sugar in its various forms. That is about one-si.\th of all our revenues 
from all sources. The effect of any measure upon so large a part of the 
revenue is vital to our finances and to the fiscal credit of the government. 

Second, it affects two great producing industries of our people. The 
first of these is the growth of cane and the production of cane sugar, 
to foster which congress has for a long time levied a discriminating 
duty, though only a single State is pursuing the industry. Notwith- 
standing the fact that sugar is one of the necessities of the daily life of 
our people, they have consented to pay a tax which, under e.xisting 
laws, averages about sixty-two and one-half per cent, ad valorem upon 
all the sugar they consume. This burden is borne cheerfully for the 
purpose of protecting and promoting a great home industry in one of 
our southern States. 

A second important industry whicli has grown up in connection with 
ihe sugar trade and has developed to a great magnitude in recent years 
is the business of refining. It is one of the interesting evidences of the 
progress of civilization that people are using less and less of the raw 
sugars of commerce, and more and more of refined sugars. And this 
chano'e of habit is not merely a refinement of luxury but is demanded 
bv a better knowledge of the lavts of health. In a recent investigation 
made by the Analytical Sanitary Commission of England, appointed to 
examine the various kinds of food, Dr. Hassell, the chairman, reported 
among other things the following; 



POLITICAL ECOXOMV. I 77 

"^^'e fee!, however reluctantly, that we have come to the conclusion 
that the sugars of commerce are in general in a state wholly unfit for 
consumption." 

That is the latest voice of science in England on the subject of unre- 
fined sugar. And if gentlemen will turn to the Popular Science Month- 
ly, of New York, for February, 1879, they will find a very interesting 
scientific discussion of the various insects that infest food, and on pages 
508 and 509 occurs a passage relating to sugars, which I quote: 

" The sugar-mite, T. sacchari, (a magnified wood-cut of which ac- 
companies the passage), is most commonly found in brown sugar. It 
is large enough to be seen with the naked eye, and sometimes appears 
as white specks in the sugar. It may be discovered by dissolving two 
or three spoonfuls of sugar in warm water and allowing the solution to 
stand for an hour or so. At the end of the time the acari will be found 
floating on the surface, adhering to the sides of the glass, and lying 
mixed with the grit and dirt that always accumulate at the bottom. In 
ten grains of sugar as many as five hundred mites have been found, 
which is at the rate of three hundred and fifty thousand to the pound. 
Those who are engaged in handling raw sugars are subject to an erup- 
tion known as 'grocers' itch,' which is doubtless to be traced to the 
presence of these mites. They are almost invariably present in unre- 
fined sugars, and may be seen in all stages of growth and in e\'ery con- 
dition, alive and dead, entire or broken in fragments. Refined sugars 
are free from them. This is in part due, perhaps, to the crystals being 
so hard as to resist their jaws, but principally to the absence of albumen, 
for without nitrogenous matter they cannot live. ^ * 

"These degrading and disgusting forms are not proper food-stufFs, 
nor is their consumption unavoidable. Pure articles, in an undamaged 
condition, do not contain them, and their presence in numbers in any 
article of food is proof that it is unfit for human use and should be 
rejected. " 

This scientific testimony is corroborated by the experience of all per- 
sons who manipulate raw sugars, while no such effects result from the 
handling of refined sugars. For these reasons the consumption of raw 
sugars in this and in all other civilized countries has rapidly fallen off. 
And so, although in former years a large quantity of what is known as 
grocers' sugars went directly into consumption without going through 



lyS LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

the process of refining, the amount of sugars of that class now used 
has been reduced to almost nothing. 

To exhibit something of the magnitude of this industry, I state a few 
facts: omitting maple, sorghum, and beet sugar, we consumed last year 
in round numbers one billion seven hundred million pounds of cane 
sugar. Of this amount we produced in our own country two hundred 
million pounds; the remaining one billion five hundred millions were 
imported. Reduce the whole to tons, the people of the United States 
consumed seven hundred and forty thousand tons of cane sugar last 
year, or an average of aboat forty-five pounds to each inhabitant. Of 
all this vast amount of sugar not two per cent, was consumed in the 
raw or unrefined state. Nearly all of it passed through some process 
of refining to fit it for the use of our people. 

From this it will be seen that in addition to the business of cane- 
planting and sugar-making there has grown up in this country a second 
industry of sugar refining, the importance of which may be shown by 
a few additional facts. There are twenty-five thousand laborers in the 
United States to-day employed in the business of refining sugar and 
fitting it for use, in addition to those employed by the sugar producers. 
In this work they employ coopers, blacksmiths, mechanics, machinists, 
and other classes of laborers. They consume thirty millions of pounds 
of bone-dust, eighteen thousand kegs of nails, thirty thousand car- 
loads of staves, and three hundred thousand tons of coal. 

In this statement I do not take into account the refining done by 
Louisiana planters in preparing their products for market, though a 
large majority of the sugar growers, have connected with their mills 
some form of refining. I have stated these facts to show the e.\ient of 
the two home industries, which we should keep in view in any legisla- 
tion on the subject. 

The third interest to be considered is our foreign commerce, of which 
only a word needs to be said. We are compelled to buy abroad about 
eighty-five per cent, of all our sugar. We buy it from tropical coun- 
tries with which, on every ground of public policy, we ought to main- 
tain healthy and active relations of trade. If we are able, by our supe- 
rior skill, to refine their low-grade sugars more cheaply than our neigh- 
bors and send them back with the added value of American labor, it will 
strengthen us industrially and commercially; and the fact that our refin 



POLITICAL ECONOMY. 179 

ing interest has grown to such perfection tliat we haxe been able to sell 
in a single year to tropical countries about seventy million pounds of re- 
fined sugar, is a gratifying one on every account. Xo change should be 
made in the law which will injure our commercial prospects in this direc- 
tion. 

The fourth interest, one of vital importance, is that of the consumers 
of sugar. They are not a class; they are the whole population of the 
United States; and there must be reasons of controlling strength that 
will justify any considerable tax on an article of food of universal con- 
sumption and of Such prime necessity as sugar. That reason has been 
found partly in the necessity for revenue, but chiefly in the purpose of 
enabling our people to become self-supporting, and as far as possible 
to produce their own sugars, that they may not be dependent upon 
foreign countries for so important an article of food. In short, the 
chief reason for the tax is that American labor may find employment in 
producing and preparing food for American tables. 

The duty on sugar has been levied in various forms. Up to 1846 
sugars were classified into raw and refined sugars, with a low rate on 
the raw and a higher rate on the refined. But as the processes of 
manufacture and refining have been improved, additional grades have 
been added to the law from time to time to meet the new conditions. 
It was found in 1870 that the lower grades embraced so wide a range 
of products that a uniform tax upon one whole class was neither equit- 
able nor just ; and hence the law was so amended as to increase the 
number of classes and make the tax ad valorem in principle but specific 
inform; that is, sugar in all its forms was graded into seven classes, 
arranged in the order of its value, and a specific duty was levied upon 
each class, the lowest rate being imposed upon sugars of lowest value 
and a higher rate upon each successive class. The tax thus adjusted 
has been an efficient means of raising revenue. I have already shown 
that it produces more than thirty-seven million dollars a year. That it 
has afforded sufficient protection to the producers and refiners of sugar 
will not be denied. The theory of protection may perhaps be thus 
summarized: on any imported article which comes in competition with 
an American product the rate of tax should be proportionate to the 
amount of human labor which has been expended upon it at the time 
of importation. That which represents the least labor should bear the 



l8o LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

least burden of tax; that which represents the most should bear the 
greatest. The principle has generally prevailed in all our tariff laws 
relating to sugar. 

As the law now stands, the duty is adjusted by classifying all sugars 
into seven grades. First, the lowest, crudest, and cheapest product, 
which comes in liquid form and is known as melada. On that we levy 
a specific duty equal to about forty per cent, ad valorem. The next 
grade of sugar is represented by the specimen I hold in my hand, and 
is known in the trade and to our law as Dutch standard number seven. 
Until a recent period all sugar was manufactured by the simple process 
of boiling down the cane-juice and clarifying the product by means of 
clay. By that process the purity and strength and hence the value of 
all crystallized sugar were exhibited by its color. Here, for example, 
[holding up a specimen], is a specimen of the lowest and crudest forms 
of crystallized sugar. Gentlemen will notice its dark color. It is 
known and graded as Dutch standard number seven, and forms the 
second class in our present law. Here ^holding up another specimen] 
is another specimen advanced higher, embodying more human labor, 
having less impurity in it, being advanced to a condition fit for use. It 
is known as Dutch standard number twenty. 

Then follows a discussion of the details, in which 
many gentlemen of the house participated, in the all- 
togethery way of that body. He is now an opposition 
member of the ways and means, giving the ruling major- 
ity the benefits of his thorough mastery of the subject, 
as faithfully given to the country now, as when he guided 
the policies of the ruling party. He contrasts the pres- 
ent law with the Robbins bill, which sought to consoli- 
date the grades of sugar, and he again touches the broad 
field, which he always illuminates. Hear him: 

Of the grades under Xo. lo, Dutch standard, there were received 
thirty-five million dollars out of thirty-seven million dollars ; and of 
the grades under No. 7 I think about fourteen million dollars or fifteen 
million dollars. But from No. 10 down we get thirty-five millions of 



POLITICAL ECONOMY. 151 

the thirty-seven millions collected on sugar. What effect this change 
will have on the revenues it is difficult to say ; but I have no doubt it 
will wholly prevent the importation of the lowest grades, will increase 
the price of sugar ip the consumer and probably decrease the revenue. 
At all events it is a dangerous experiment to make in view of our pres- 
ent financial necessities. 

But I desire to show how it will operate as a protective measure. I 
have already shown that by our present law sugar pays a duty of forty 
percent., forty-five percent., forty-six percent., forty-nine percent., 
sixty-eight per cent., etc., increasing in rate from the lower to the 
higher grades. Now note the effect of consolidating the lower grades, 
as proposed in the Robbins bill, and fixing the single rate of two and 
forty-one hundredths cents per pound. Melada, which is the lowest 
grade and now pays about forty per cent., will then pay eighty per 
cent, ad valorem. The second grade, (that is, sugar not above No. 7,) 
which now pays forty-five per cent., will then pay sixty-eight and one- 
half percent, ad valorem. The next grade will pay sixty per cent., 
the next higher fifty-three per cent., the next higher forty-five per cent., 
and the next forty-two per cent, ad valorem. 

In short, the Robbins bill is an inverted cone ; the lowest grade of 
sugar must bear the highest rate of duty, and the highest grade will 
bear the lowest rate. In other words, the less labor there is in the im- 
ported product, the heavier the rate of tax upon it ; and the more 
labor, foreign labor remember, there is in it, the least burden of tax 
will be put upon it. 

The fundamental doctrine of protection is completely overturned and 
reversed by this bill. Yet it is by no means a free trade bill. It so 
happens that on the grades upon which the extreme high rate of duty 
is mnposed, our friends from Louisiana will recieve a very considerably 
larger protective duty than the present law gives them. Hence the 
favor with which this proposition is received by gentlemen from that 
portion of the country. 

Mr. Kelley. I desire to say that there is such a noise coming from 
the galleries that we sitting here by the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. 
Garfield] cannot hear what he is saying. 

The Speaker/rc; tempore. Unless silence is observed in the galleries 
they will be cleared. 



l82 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

Mr. Garfield. Now, Mr. Speaker, I object to this bill, first, because 
it violates the fundamental principles of a just and equitable taxation; 
and I object to it in the second place because it puts a prohibitory duty 
upon the low-grade sugars that are refined by American skill, and 
become the cheap sugar in common use among our people. It injures 
one portion of our industrial interests and gives an unreasonable pro- 
tection to another. It violates the canons of free trade on the one 
hand, and of protection on the other. It destroys absolutely the 
business of refining the cheap low-grade sugars, and will increase the 
cost of sugars most in use. 

Let me illustrate still further. How is it that this day while I speak 
to you sugar is cheaper in the United States than it has ever been 
before ? Because we have built up in this country a great industry, by 
which we are eclipsing the world as refiners of sugar. When the 
French manufacturers were at Philadelphia at our centennial, they were 
amazed to see that our sugar products there rivaled the best products 
of the Old World. They did not understand how it had been done. 
But it was the result of the same skill that has enabled America to 
surpass so many other countries in the recent exposition at Paris, and 
to carry off more medals in proportion to their exhibitors than any 
other five countries of the globe. 

We were so successful in the refining of sugar that two years ago we 
were exporting seventy million pounds of our refined product. It was 
becoming and it will become, if we are allowed to carry on this in- 
dustry, a great element in our export trade. We are trading with Cuba 
and South America; we are compelled to depend largely upon the 
tropics for our raw material. Is it not wise for us to be able to send 
back the refined product in exchange? Or shall we so legislate as to 
give an undue protection to our Louisiana planters, and drive the 
refining business out of the United States, allowing Cuba, England, 
and other countries to do our refining for us ? Refined sugar we must 
have. The day is gone by when our people will eat the animals which 
abound in the raw unmanufactured sugars of the world. I say, there- 
fore, that this bill as drawn sins against the consumer and against the 
refining interest and unreasonably protects the producing interest of 
the country. 

Let me illustrate a little further. In the Phillipine islands there is a 



POLITICAL ECONOMY. 1 83 

diss of people who have not enough intelHgence and resources to take 
the first simple step toward clarifying sugar. They have no limestone 
on their islands; they cannot even furnish the lime to drop into the 
sugar vats and clarify the product just a little. But they take the juice 
of the cane and boil it down in the crudest, rudest, simplest way, by 
labor the cheapest and least skilful ; and when they have reduced it to a 
black, cheap form of crystallized sugar, the dirtiest yet known, they 
put it up in sacks of one hundred and fifty p)ounds each, so that a man 
can carry it on his back to the landing to be shipped away. Our people 
are buying largely of that low grade of sugar from the Phillipine 
islands. We are buying it also from other countries where the produc- 
tion is of a low grade. This sugar we bring here, and by our skill a!id 
labor make it into a cheap, clean sugar for table use. Shall we now by 
law impose a prohibitory duty on all that trade and industry, an eighty 
per cent, rate or a sixty-five per cent, rate, keeping it all out and bring- 
ing in only the sugar that has been advanced by the higher and more 
intelligent processes of our nearer neighbors, thus cutting off the whole 
business of refining these low-grade sugars? I hope not. 

I know there is some controversy among the refiners themselves. 
Some of them — indeed, quite a number of most estimable gentlemen — 
say, "Let this bill pass and we can do a better refining business than is 
done now; we can refine the high-grade sugars." Now, I am glad to 
have those gentlemen work the higher grades of sugar and make 
a success of them; but I see no reason why our refineries should not 
also take the lowest grades of sugar, that which has the least value, 
the least labor in it, and bring it up by our American labor to a cheap, 
useful, merchantable form; and, therefore, I am unwilling, for the sake 
of helping one class of refiners, to destroy another. I do not believe 
it is necessary to destroy either. 

I regret that the refiners do not unite on some common ground on 
Vhich all could have had a fair chance. But there seems to have been 
an internecine war among them; and with such a war I have no 
sympathy. 

There is so much information as well as discussion in 
this admirable performance, that one leaves it with much 
regret. 



184 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

From his great speech in reply to Rand. Tucker, of 
the month of June, 1878, I can only quote this copious 
passage : 

Too much of our tariff discussion has been warped by narrow and 
sectional considerations. But when we base our action upon the con- 
ceded national importance of tb.e great industries I liave referred to, 
when we recognize the fact that artisans and their products are essen- 
tial to the well-being of our country, it follows that there is no dweller 
in the humblest cottage on our remotest frontier who has not a deep 
personal interest in the legislation that shall promote these great na- 
tional industries. Those arts that enable our Nation to rise in the 
scale of civilization bring their blessings to all, and patriotic citizens 
will cheerfully bear a fair share of the burden necessary to make their 
country great and self-sustaining. I will defend a tariff that is national 
in its aims, that protects and sustains those interests without which the 
Nation cannot become great and self-sustaining. 

So important, in my view, is the ability of the Nation to manufact- 
ure all these articles necessary to arm, equip, and clothe our people, 
that if it could not be secured in any other way I would vote to pay 
money out of the Federal treasury to maintain government iron and 
steel, woolen and cotton mills, at whatever cost. 

We are often surprised in an examination of the labors 
of congress, to find under what inexpressive heads lie 
hidden interesting, often most valuable, matter. Duty 
on sugar was not very suggestive. 'We have seen what 
it covered. Now we come upon hoop-iron, where I lin- 
ger only to say, that in Mr. Garfield's minority report of 
the ways and means, of May, 1880, may be found sev- 
eral large cubes of very considerable specific gravity, and 
of great value in the markets of wisdom. It is a com- 
pact presentation of one part of the mighty subject of 
iron — of "pig-iron'' also, in some of its important fea- 
tures. This is apparent when I quote from it the effect 



POLITICAL ECONOMY. 1 85 

which would result from the change in the duties, which 
it most vigorously opposes: 

I. It will destroy at least six millions of capital now invested in ma- 
chinery specially and exclusively applied to this particular branch of 
manufacture in Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio, and 
other States. 

II. It will turn out of employment not less than five thousand artis- 
ans and laborers who are now engaged in this special manufacture, and 
about ten thousand more who are engaged in the production of the 
material of which hoop-iron is made. 

III. It will transfer the profits of these manufactures to the importers 
and to our rivals in foreign countries, and will not materially reduce the 
cost of the furnished products to American consumers. This is shown 
by the fact that since the importation of cut-hoops, under the treasury 
ruling of 1878, has been allowed at thirty-five per cent, the importers 
and foreign producers have fixed the prices at so small a fraction below 
the price at which the American manufacturer can produce them, that 
only a very small advantage has accrued to the consumer; and the 
home production has become impossible. 

IV. It is wholly out of harmony with the duties imposed by existing 
laws upon every other form of iron manufacture, as may be seen by 
e.xamining the Revised Statutes (Boutwell's edition), pp. 464, et se'^. 

It violates two principles whica have controlled nearly all our tariff 
legislation since the foundation of the government; First, that all im- 
ported articles which are alike in kind and in their relation to the wants 
and industries of the United States shall be treated alike in the customs 
laws. Second, that imported articles which come into competition with 
tlie industries of this country shall bear a rate of duty proportioned to 
the amount of skill and labor employed in their production. 

These extracts also show the steady, far-seeing devo 
tion of their author, to the vast and varied interests of 
the Republic, caring for each and all, with the same en- 
lightened solicitude and sagacity. 

Immediately connected with the tariff, and interwoven 
with every fibre of the system of production in all forms, 



lS6 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

is the great subject of transit, the means of transporta- 
tion. 

It falls so naturally into this chapter, that I may here 
place Mr. Garfield's views on our system of railroads, in 
their relations to commerce, the country generally, as set 
forth in his speech in the house of June, 1874. The 
danger of mistranslating is so great, and the reader has 
such a preference for Mr. Garfield's e.xpression of his 
own thoughts that time and space must, as most men 
and things do, give place for him. The trouble is, there 
is such an exceeding much of him, that one is bewildered 
by his magnitude, which defies compression. He is not 
porous. In studying this speech, the place to begin is 
easily found, though I shall pass to a later paragraph. I 
cannot give it entire, nor can I find a place short of the 
end where I would stop, and one can't leave any of him 
out, at intermediate points. 

We pass matter of pith and moment, and break in 
upon him here: 

What have our people done for the locomotive, and what has it done 
for us? To the United States, with its vast territorial areas, the rail- 
road was a vital necessity. 

Talleyrand once said to the first Napoleon that " the United States 
was a giant without bones." Since that time our gristle has been rap- 
idly hardening. Sixty-seven thousand miles of iron track is a tolerable 
skeleton, even for a giant. When this new power appeared, our peo- 
ple everywhere felt the necessity of setting it to work; and individuals, 
cities, States, and the Nation lavished their resources without stint to 
make a pathway for it. Fortunes were sunk under almost every mile 
of our earlier roads in the effort to capture and neutralize this new 
power. If the State did not head the subscription for a new road, it 
usually came to the rescue before the work was completed. 



POLITICAI, ECOXOMV. 1 87 

The lands given by the States and by the National government to aid 
in the construction of railroads reach an aggregate of nearly two hun- 
dred and fifty million acres— a territory equal to nine times the area of 
Ohio. With these vast resources we have made paths for the steam 
giant; and to-day nearly a quarter of a million of our business and 
working men are in its immediate service. Such a power naturally 
attracts to its enterprises the brightest and strongest intellects. It 
would be difficult to find in any other profession so large a proportion 
of men possessed of a high order of business ability as those who con- 
struct, manage and operate our railroads. 

The American people have done much for the locomotive; and it has 
done much for them. We have already seen that it has greatly re- 
duced, if not wholly destroyed, the danger that the government will 
fall to pieces by its own weight. The railroad has not only brought 
our people and their industries together, but it has carried civilization 
into the wilderness, has built up States and Territories, which but for its 
power would have remained deserts for centuries to come. "Abroad 
and at home," as Mr. Adams tersely declares, "it has equally nation- 
ahzed people and cosmopolized nations." It has played a most im- 
protant part in the recent movement for the unification and preserva- 
tion of nations. 

It enabled us to do what the old military science had pronounced im- 
possible, to conquer a revolted population of eleven millions, occupying 
a territory one-fifth as large as the continent of Europe. In an able 
«ssay on the railway system Mr. Charles F. Adams, jr., has pointed 
out some of the remarkable achievements of the railroad in our recent 
history. For example, a single railroad track enabled Sherman to 
maintain eighty thousand fighting men three hundred miles beyond his 
base of supplies. Another line, in the space of seven days, brought a 
reinforcement of two fully equipped army corps around a circuit of 
thirteen hundred miles, to strengthen an army at a threatened point. 
He calls attention to the still more striking fact that for ten years past, 
with fifteen hundred millions of our indebtedness abroad, an enormous 
debt at home, unparalleled puljlic expenditures, and a depreciated 
paper currency, in defiance of all past experience, we have been stead- 
ily conquering our difficulties, have escaped the predicted collapse, and 
are promptly meeting our engagements; because, through energetic 



l8S LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

r lilror.d development, the country has been producing real wealth, as 
no cov.ntry has produced it before. Finally he sums up the case by de- 
claring that the locomotive " has dragged the country through its diffi- 
culties in spite of itself." 

It is unnecessary to particularize further; for whether there be peace 
or war, society cannot e.xist in its present order without the railroad. 

I have noticed briefly what society has done for the locomotive, and 
what it has done for society. Let us now inquire what it is doing and 
is likely to do to society. 

The national constitution and the constitutions of most of the 
States were formed before the locomotive existed; and of course no 
special provisions were made for its control. .Are our institutions strong 
enough to stand the shock and strain of this new force? 

The editor of the \ation declares the simple truth when, in a recent 
issue, he says: 

"The locomotive is coming in contact with the frame-work of our 
institutions. In this country of simple government the most powerful 
centralizing force which civilization 1ms yet produced, must, within the 
ne.xt score of years, assume its relations to that political machinery 
which is to control and regulate it." 

The railway problem would have been much easier of solution if its 
difficulties had been understood in the beginning. But we have waited 
until the child has become a giant. We attempted to mount a colum- 
biad on a carriage whose strength was only sufficient to stand the recoil 
of a twelve-pHDund shot. 

The danger to be apprehended does not arise from the railroad, 
merely, but from its combination with a piece of legal machinery known 
as a private corpxaration. 

In discussing this theme we must not make an indiscriminate attack 
up>on corporations. The corporation limited in its proper uses is one 
of the most valuable of the many useful creations of law. One class 
of corporations has played a most important and conspicuous part in 
securing the liberties of mankind. It was the municipal corporations 
— the free cities and chartered — that preserved and developed the spirit 
of freedom during the darkness of the Middle Ages, and powerfully 
aided in the overthrow of the feudal system The charters of London 
and of the lesser cities and towns of England made the most effective 



POLITICAL ECONOMY. 159 

resistance to the tyranny of Charles II., and the judicial savagery of 
Jeffreys. The spirit of the free town and t/.e chartered colony taught 
our o\sn fathers how to win their independence. The New England 
township was the political unit which formed the basis of most of our 
States. 

Since the dawn of history, the great thoroughfares have belonged to 
the people, have been known as the king's highways or the public high- 
ways, and have been open to the free use of all, on payment of a small, 
uniform tax or toll to keep them in repair. But now the most perfect 
and by far the most important roads known to mankind are owned and 
managed .as private property by a comparatively small number of 
private citizens. 

In all its uses, the railroad is the most public of all our roads; 
and in all the objects to which its work relates, the railway corporation 
is as public as any organization can be. But in the start it was labeled 
a private corporation; and, so far as its legal status is concerned, it is 
now grouped with eleemosynary institutions and private charities, and en- 
joys similar immunities and e.\emptions. It remains to be seen how long 
the community will suffer itself to be the victim of an abstract definition. 
It will be readily conceded that a corporation is strictly and really 
private when it is authorized to carry on such a business as a private 
citizen may carry on. But when the State has delegated to a corpora- 
tion the sovereign right of eminent domain, the right to take from the 
private citizen, without his consent, a portion of his real estate, to 
build its structure across farm, garden, and lawn, into and through, 
over or under, the blocks, squares, streets, churches, and dwellings of 
incorporated cities and towns, across navigable rivers, and over and 
along public highways, it requires a stretch of the common imagination 
.and much refinement and subtlety of the law to maintain the old fiction 
that an organization is not a public corporation. 

In the famous Dartmouth college case of 1819 it was decided by the 
supreme court of the United States that the charter of Dartmouth col- 
lege is a contract between the State and the corporation, which the 
legislature cannot alter without the consent of the corporation ; and that 
any such alteration is void, being in conflict with that clause of the 
constitution of the United States which forbids a State to make any 
law impairing the obhgalion of contracts. 



ipo LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

This decision has stood for more than half a century as a monunient 
of judicial learning and the great safeguard of vested rights. But 
Chief Justice Marshall pronounced this opinion ten years before the 
steam railway was born; and it is clear he did not contemplate the class 
of corporations that have since come into being. But year by year the 
doctrine of that case has been e.xtended to the whole class of private 
corporations, including railroad and telegraph companies. But few of 
the States in their early charters to railroads reserved any effectual con 
trol of the operations of the corporations they created. In many 
instances, like that of the Illinois Central charter, the right to amend 
was not reserved. In most States each legislature has narrowed and 
abridged the powers of its successors, and enlarged the powers of the 
corporations; and these by the strong grip of the law, and in the name 
of private property and vested rights, hold fast all they have received. 
By these means not only the corporations but the vast railroad and 
telegraph systems have virtually passed from the control of the State. 

It is painfully evident from the experience of the last few years that 
the efforts of the States to regulate their railroads have amounted to but 
little more than feeble annoyances. In many cases the corporations 
have treated such efforts as impertinent intermeddling, and have 
brushed away legislative restrictions as easily as Gulliver broke the cords 
with which the Lilliputians attempted to bind him. 

I do not say that this ta.\ is e.xcessive ; perhaps it is not ; but its rate 
is determined, and the amount levied and collected, not by the author- 
ity of the State, but by private parties whose chief concern is to serve 
their own interests. 

We have seen that the transportation tax is the amount paid to the 
companies for their investment. How much they shall invest, where, 
and under what limitations it shall be invested, has been wholly left to 
the companies themselves ; but whether they have invested their capital 
wisely or unwisely, however much the business may be overdone, the 
investors must be paid for the use of their capital, and that payment is 
made by the community. 

In most of the States railroads may be built in unlimited numbers 
wherever five or ten men, who incorporate themselves under the general 
law, may choose to build them, 

This has probably been allowed in the belief that free competition in 



POLITICAL ECONOMY. I9I 

building and operating roads would produce economy in the manage- 
ment and cheapness in transportation. 

But this expectation has utterly failed. All railroad exiierience has 
verified the truth of George Stephenson's aphorism, that "when com- 
bination is possible, competition is impossible." Great Britain has 
gone much farther into the study of this question than we have, and 
the result of her latest study is thus expressed in the London Quarterly 
Review of April last : 

By the common consent of all practical men competition, the ordinary 
sefeguard of the public in matters of trade, has ceased to offer the 
slightest protection (except in a few unimportant cases of rival sea 
traffic) against railway monopolies. 

In spite of the efforts of parliament and parliamentary commissions, 
combinations and amalgamation have proceeded at the instance of 
the companies, without check and almost without regulation. L'nited 
systems now exist, constituting by their magnitude and by their exclu- 
sive possession of whole districts, monopolies to which the earlier 
authorities would have been strongly opposed. Xor is there any 
reason to suppose that the progress of combination has ceased, or 
that it will cease until Great Britain is divided between a small num- 
ber of great companies. 

The article concludes with this striking paragraph: 
"We have tried X.\\e laisscz /aire policy and it has filled; we have 
tried a meddlesome policy, and it has failed also. We ha\e now to 
meet the coming day, when all the railways, having- completed their 
several systems, may, and probably in their own interests will, combine 
together to take advantage of the public. In the face of this contin- 
gency we have simply to make our choice between two alternatives; 
either to let the State manage the railways, or let the railways manage 
the State. " 

And here we leave him as abruptly as we began. 
Were I compiling a hand-book for the campaign, I 
should include the paper-pulp speech. 



CHAPTER VII. 

GARFIELD AS A FINANCIER. 

Appropriation. — Expenditure. — Budgets. — Study of the Subject. — 
Committee Laws of E.xpenditure. — Cost of War. — When they will 
disappear in Our Case. — Speech 1872.— Speech 1874. — Episode. — Flat- 
heads. 

The Forty -second congress is to be forever distinguished 
as that in which the vast and complex system of public 
expenditure was to be established on a basis of sound 
financial principles, with perspicuous rules of method 
and order, for the guidance of the labors of those to 
whom the great task of framing the appropriation bills 
for the national expenditures might be imposed. The 
services of James A. Garfield in this field are more un- 
known to his countrymen, and less appreciated than 
those of almost any statesman known to our history, 
the fruit of whose hidden work the people have un- 
consciously enjoyed. To them these pages will be a 
revelation. We have already seen him mastering and 
unfolding the subject of finance and taxation; immedi- 
ately connected with expenditure, always united in the 
hand of the English chancellor of exchequer; he is now 
to develop expenditure, and appear in the character of 
the first and greatest American chancellor of the excheq 
uer of our parliamentary history; he is himself to undergo 



GARFIELD AS A FINANCIER. 1 93 

slight mental modification, exuberance of expression, 
the little expressions of fancy, happy efforts of memory 
in quotation, which waited on his earlier efforts on the 
floor, are exorcised, and at the end of the Forty-third 
congress he went forth, not a deeper, higher, or stronger 
man, but one, on the whole more compacted and indu- 
rated, holding himself more perfectly in his own hand. 
He was placed at the head of the committee on appro- 
priations, with Aaron A. Sargent, Oliver J. Dickey, Free- 
man Clark, Frank W. Palmer, Eugene Hale, Wm. E. 
Niblack, Samuel S. Marshal, and Thomas S. Swan, 
selected with the care which indicated the accurate 
knowledge of men of the speaker of the house. The 
duties of the committee were a part of the labors of the 
ways and means, until the Thirty-ninth congress, when 
the appropriation was created. The annual expenditure 
was provided for in twelve bills, and their consideration 
in the two congresses, under Garfield, occupied a third 
of the time of the house. It was a privileged com- 
mittee, might sit during the sessions of the house, and 
its business always in order, subject to the will of the 
house. 

The first labor of the chairman was personal qualifica- 
tion. Here he always began. His knowledge was al- 
ready large and accurate. He went to the great reservoir 
English history, usage and method. He read the budget 
speeches of the chancellors of the exchequer for twenty 
years; studied their various methods, their grasp of their 
subjects, arrangements, presentations and explanations ; 
studied their estimates, and what if any were their funda- 



194 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

mental rules, and mastered the history of their expendi- 
ture during long periods of time. 

Then he took up our own which was scanty enough. 
He studied the appropriations themselves, with their re- 
lations to the extent of population and business of the 
people. He found that for a long time, it was the usage 
to appropriate a given sum in solido for the government 
at large, with no reference to the different departments ; 
that in time came a general division of a sum for each 
department; then subdivisions for the bureaus, and 
further, subdivisions for groups of items, and finally all 
were itemized, and a specific sum designated for each 
Of these were born the whole brood of deficiencies, 
against which no attained knowledge and skill have 
yet devised a safeguard. These divisions and sub- 
divisions, the further they were intelligently carried, be- 
came the safeguards niore and more effective, for the 
protection of the treasur>% against the wash of that great 
flood which had hitherto by its volume and current, 
swept away the unguarded moneys. 

Then he took up the bafiling matter of wastes and 
their causes, lapses, surpluses and deficiencies. All 
this was machinery ; mechanics, administration, surpluses 
and deficits involved principles. Below lay the great 
question of the laws of public expenditure. Upon what 
did they rest? What should govern expenditure? What 
had? In England there was an obvious relation between 
expenditure and population, engaged as the English were 
in their vastly diversified employments. In America the 
same relation was found to exist, modified by its wider 



GARFIELD AS A FINANCIER. 1 95 

expansion, and the condition of the territory it occupied. 
From these he deduced the rate of expense in time of 
peace. He found that war was constantly breaking in, 
breaking up everything, devouring everything, and de- 
manding new and extraordinary revenues, disarrang- 
ing all the sources of income, and compelling a resort to 
new methods, often of credit or loan supply, the burdens 
of which would remain after their cause had ceased. 
What, then, does war do? What are its effects as a mat- 
ter of pure finance, upon expenditure and the sources of 
revenue? His labor was limited to expenditure. He 
made wide and several inductions, as history offered 
the means. 

This, to him, seemed the rule. Take a given public 
war, mark the average of expenditure before it began, 
note its continuance in time, double this time, and the 
sum would represent the probable period, at which the 
expenditure would be near what it was when the v/ar 
began, having reference to the rule of population, and 
in this country, its proportion to the country it covered. 
In this estimate, another thing came in for consideration. 

Upon the conclusion of the war, in determining at 
what period the ante bellum rate of expenditure will be 
reached, it became necessary to distinguish between what 
items of expense were due wholly to the war, and what 
were incident to peace only, and what partook of both. 
As time advances, under a wise administration, the for- 
mer would diminish, and more nearly approximate equal- 
ity with the sum required for peace, which in turn would 
constantly be on the i.icrease. The intersection of the 



196 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

war descending line, with the rising peace margin would 
mark the point, below which their united volume would 
never descend. The rise of the peace expenditure, 
would compensate the decrease of that for war. The 
time for this cutting of the lines, he calculated, would, 
in our present case, be reached in 1876. 

Upon this theory of expenditure, he formed his first 
budget. The general soundness of it was confirmed by 
the experience of the two congresses, during which he 
presided over expenditure, and the system and methods 
thus introduced, have not been widely departed from 
since. 

Some further words will explain the basis of his per- 
sonal relations with the gentlemen of his committee, and 
the methods he employed to secure from each his best 
efforts in the common cause. Hitherto it was the rule 
of the senate, and in a modified form of the house also, 
that all the members of the committee were the practical 
subordinates of the head. He commanded a company 
of privates — was the one figure on the floor — the chief, 
absorbing all the credit and notoriety the place gave him. 

Garfield introduced a new practice, and with it new 
life and efficiency in his company. Here, too, he drew 
on his own experience and early observation. When 
first one of the Hiram corps of teachers, the chief had 
a way of absorbing and drawing to himself the credit 
due to his several lieutenants. The evil as well as in- 
justice of it, was seen and felt by the young professor of 
languages. When he succeeded to the headship, in in- 
terviews with each of the professors and teachers, he 



GARFIELD AS A FINANCIER. 1 97 

commended them for such merit as they had, and urged 
them severally to go forward on their appointed ways, 
making and wearing their own fames. The institution 
sprang into new life and vigor. When exjx)stulated 
with, as diminishing his own reputation and importance, 
he answered, "See what it is doing for the college." It 
was effective service that he wanted. He knew men, and 
secured it, leaving to others to care for his reputation. 

He early unfolded his views of expenditure to his 
associates. He then explained his idea of their rela- 
tions to him, and to each other. Of the twelve great 
bills, one at least, was committed to each of the nine, 
to whom it was delivered by the chief, with all the infor- 
mation he had, and full suggestions as to the best method 
of dealing with it. A discriminating reduction of the 
estimates was the standing order, each man to go to all 
the departments, heads of bureaus, and down to the hid- 
den, unknown men, who did know, all this informa- 
tion to be gathered, noted, collated and filed. When 
the man's bill was perfected and passed upon, he re- 
ported it, had the charge of it on the floor, made the 
opening speech, and the closing argument, with his chief 
and associates present, a trained, intelligent, armed band, 
acting in concert, ready to aid when needed — until then 
remaining silent. The work and credit of it thus were 
the task and property of the given man. The commit- 
tee without reference to party lines, at once came to be 
a band of friends, standing closely about the chief whom 
they loved, never differing or jealous, always effective on 
the floor, and useful in committee. 



198 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

For himself, Garfield took largely the care of the re- 
maining bills, while each member was prepared to aid 
him and all the others. 

On the introduction of his leading bill, the chairman 
took occasion to unfold his general views, which he did 
on the twenty-third of January, 1872. From this I 
quote nearly all which is an exposition of his views. 

Mr. Chairman; In opening the discussion of this bill, I realize the 
difficulties which at all times attend the work of making appropriations 
for carrying on this government. Elut there are more than ordinary 
difficulties attending the work of a chairman who succeeds to a position 
which has been so adorned as has the chairmanship of the committee 
on appropriations during the last two years.* The most I can now 
venture, is to express the hope that by the generous aid of my col- 
leagues on the committee, and the support of the house, I may be able 
to follow, at a humble distance, in the path my predecessor has traveled. 

I would not occupy any time this morning in the preliminary discus- 
sion of this bill, but for the fact that this general appropriation bill, 
more than any other of the eleven which will come before the house, 
embraces in its scope nearly the whole civil establishment of the gov- 
ernment. The approval of this bill is, in a certain sense, the ajsproval 
of the whole system to which the other appropriations will refer. If 
our general plan of appropriations ought to be attacked, this is the 
place to begin. If they have a sufficient reason for being in the main 
what they are, that sufficient reason can be given for the passage of 
this bill substantially as it stands in the print before us. I therefore 
beg the indulgence of the committe while I call attention to a few ques- 
tions which have arisen in my mind during the study I have given the 
subject. 

RELATION OF EXPENDITURES TO THE GOVERNMENT. 

And first of all, I will consider what part e.xpenditures play in the 
affairs of the government. It is difficult to discuss expenditures com- 
prehensively without discussing also the revenues ; but I shall on this 

* Mr. Dawes, now in the senate. 



A 



GARFIELD AS A FINANCIER 



199 



occasion allude to the revenues only on a single pxsint. Revenue and 
the expenditure of revenue form by far the most important element in 
the government of modern nations. Revenue is not, as someone has 
said, the friction of a government, but rather its motive power. With- 
out it the machinery of a government cannot move ; and by it all the 
movements of a government are regulated. The expenditure of rev- 
enue forms the grand level from which all heights and depths of legis- 
lative action are measured. The increase and the diminution of the 
burdens of taxation depend alike upon their relation to this level of ex- 
penditures. That level once given, all other policies must conform to 
it and be determined by it. The expenditure of revenue and its dis- 
tribution, therefore, form the best test of the health, the wisdom, and 
the virtue of a government. Is a government corrupt, that corruption 
will inevitably, sooner or later, show itself at the door of the treasury 
in demands for money. There is scarcely a conceivable form of cor- 
ruption or public wrong that does not at last present itself at the cash- 
ier's desk and demand money. The legislature, therefore, that stands 
at the cashier's desk and watches with its Argus eyes the demands for 
payment over the counter, is most certain to see all the forms of public 
rascality. At that place, too, we may feel the Nation's pulse ; we may 
determine whether it is in the delirium of fever or whether the currents 
of its life are flowing with the steady throbbings of health. What 
could have torn down the gaudy fabric of the late government of 
France so effectually as the simple expedient of compiling and publish- 
ing a balance sheet of the e.xpenditures of Napoleon's government, as 
compared with the expenditures of the fifteen years which preceded his 
reign ? A quiet student of finance exhibited the fact that during fifteen 
years of Napoleon's reign the expenditures of his government had been 
increased by the enormous total of three hundred and fifty million dol- 
lars in gold per annum. 

HOW SHALL EXPENDITURES BE GAUGED? 

Such, in my view, are the relations which the expenditures of the 
revenue sustain to the honor and safety of the Nation. How, then, 
shall they be regulated ? By what gauge shall we determine the amount 
of revenue that ought to be expended by a nation? This question is 
full of difficulty, and I can hope to do little more than offer a few sug- 
ge.stitms in the direction of its solution. 



200 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

And, first, I remark that the mere amount of the appropriations is in 
itself no test. To say that this government is expending two hundred 
and ninety-two milHon dollars a year, may be to say that we are penu- 
rious and niggardly in our expenditures, and may be to say that we are 
lavish and prodigal. There must be some ground of relative judgment, 
some test by which we can determine whether expenditures are reason- 
able or exorbitant. It has occurred to me that two tests can be applied. 

TEST OF POPULATION. 

The first and most important is the relation of expenditure to the 
population. In some ratio corresponding to the increase of popula- 
tion it may be reasonable to increase the expenditures of a government. 
Thi?is the test usually applied in Europe. In an official table I have 
before me the exp>enditures of the British government for the last fifteen 
years, I find the statement made over against the annual average of 
each year of the expenditure per capita of the population. The aver- 
age expenditure per caprita for that period, was two pounds, seven shil- 
lings and seven pence, or about twelve dollars in gold, with a slight 
tendency to decrease each year. In our own country, commencing 
with 1830 and taking the years when the census was taken, I find that 
the expenditures, per capita, exclusive of payments on the principal and 
interest of the public debt were as follows: 

In 1830 $1 03 

In 1840 I 41 

In 1850 I 60 

In i860 I 94 

In 1870 4 26 

or, excluding pensions, three dollars and fifty-two cents. No doubt 
this test is valuable. But how shall it be applied? Shall the increase 
of expenditures keep pace with the population? We know that popu- 
lation tends to increase in a geometrical ratio, that is, at a per cent, 
compounded annually. If the normal increase of expenditures follows 
the same law, we might look forward to the future with alarm. It is 
manifest, however, that the necessity of expenditures does not keep 
pace with the mere increase of numbers; and while the total sum of 
money expended must necessarily be greater from year to year, the 
amount per capita ought in all well-regulated governments in time of 
jjeace to grov/ gradually less. 



GARFIELD AS A FINANCIER. 20I 

TEST OF TERRITORIAL SETTLEMENT AND EXPANSION. 

But in a country like ours there is another element besides popula- 
tion that helps to determine the movement of expenditures. That ele- 
ment can hardly be found in any other country. It is the increase and 
settlement of our territory, the organic increase of the Nation by the ad- 
dition of new States. To begin with the original thirteen States, and 
gauge expenditure till now by the increase of papulation alone, would 
be manifestly incorrect. But the fact that there have been added 
twenty-four States, and that we now have nine territories, not includ- 
ing Alaska, brings a new and important element into the calculation. 
It is impossible to estimate the effect of this element upon expendi- 
tures. But if we examine our own records from the beginning of the 
government, it will appear that every great increase of settled territory 
has very considerably added to the expenditures. 

If these reflections be just, it will follow that the ordinary movement 
of our expenditures depends upon the action of two forces: first, the 
natural growth of population, and second, the extension of our terri- 
tory and the increase in the number of our States. Some day, no 
doubt — and I hope at no distant day— we shall have reached the limit 
of territorial expansion. I hope we have reached it now, except to en- 
large the number of States within our borders; and when we have set- 
tled our unoccupied lands, when we have laid down the fixed and cer- 
tain boundaries of our country, then the movement of our expenditure 
in time of peace will be remitted to the operation of the one law, the 
increase of population. That law, as I have already intimated, is not 
an increase by a per cent, compounded annually, but by a per cent, 
that decreases annually. No doubt the expenditures will always in- 
crease from year to year; but they ought not to increase by the same 
per cent from year to year; the rate of increase ought gradually to 
grow less. 

EXPENDITURES OF ENGLAND. 

In England, for example, where the territory is fixed, and they are 
remitted to the single law of increase of population, the increase of ex- 
penditure during the last fifteen years of peace has been only about one 
and three-quarter per cent, compouiulcd aiiiuially. I believe nobody 
has made a very careful estimate uf tiie rate in our country; our growth 
has been too irregular to afford daLi for an accurate estimate. But a 



202 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

gentleman who has given much attention to the subject expressed to 
me the behef that our expenditures in time of peace have increased 
about eight per cent, compounded annually. I can hardly believe it; 
yet I am sure that somewhere between that and the English rate will 
be found our rate of increase in times of peace. I am aware that such 
estimates as these are unsatisfactory, and that nothing short of the ac- 
tual test of experience can determine the movements of our expendi- 
tures; but these suggestions, which have resulted from some study of 
the subject, I offer for the reflection of those who care to follow them out. 

EFFECTS OK WAK ON E.XPENDITL'RES. 

Thus far I have considered the expenditures that arise in times of 
peace. Any view of this subject would be incomplete that did not in- 
clude a consideration of the effect of war upon national expenditures. 
I have spoken of what the rate ought to be in time of peace, for carry- 
ing on a government. I will next consider the effect of war on the rate 
of increase. And here we are confronted with that anarchic element, 
the plague of nations, which Jeremy Bentham called "mischief on the 
largest scale." After the fire and blood of the battle-fields have disap- 
peared, nowhere does war show its destroying power so certainly and 
so rentlessly as in the columns which represent the taxes and expendi- 
tures of the nation. Let me illustrate this by two examples. 

In 1792, the year preceding the commencement of the great war 
against Napoleon, the expenditures of Great Britain were less than 
twenty million pounds sterling. 

During the twenty-four years that elapsed, from the commencement 
of that wonderful struggle until its close at Waterloo, m 1815, the ex- 
penditures rose by successive bounds, until, in one year near the close 
of the war, it reached the enormous sum of one hundred and six million 
seven hundred and fifty thousand pounds. 

The unusual increase of the public debt, added to the natural growth 
of expenditures from causes already discussed, made it impossible for 
England ever to reach her old level of expenditure. It took twenty 
years after Waterloo to reduce expenditures from seventy-seven million 
seven hundred and fifty thousand pounds, the annual average of the 
second decade of the century, to forty-five million seven hundred and 
fifty thousand pounds, the expenditure for 1835. 

This last figure was the lowest England has known during the pres- 



GARFIELD AS A FINANXIER. 203 

ent century. Then followed nearly forty years of pseace, from Waterloo 
to the Crimean war in 1854. The figures for that period may be taken 
to represent the natural growth of expenditures in England. During 
that period the expenditures increased, in a tolerably uniform ratio, 
from forty-five million seven hundred and fifty thousand pounds, the 
amount for 1835, to about fifty-one million seven hundred and fifty 
thousand pounds, the average for the five years ending 1853-54. This 
increase was about four million dollars of our money per annum. 
Then came the Crimean war of 1854-1856, during one year of which 
the expenditures rose to eighty-four million five hundred thousand 
pounds. 

Again, as after the Napoleonic war. it required several years for the 
expenditures of the kingdom to get down to the new level of peace, 
which level was much higher than that of the former peace. 

During the last ten years the exfienditures of Great Britain have 
again been gradually increasing ; the average for the six years ending 
with March 31, 1871, being sixty-eight million seven hundred and fifty 
thousand pounds. 

WAR EXPENDITURES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

As the second e.xample of the effect of war on the movement of 
national exjjenditures, I call attention to our own history. 

Considering the ordinary expenses of the government, exclusive of 
payments on the principal and interest of the public debt, the annual 
average may be stated thus : 

Beginning with 1791, the last decade of the eighteenth century 
showed an annual average of three million seven hundred and fifty 
thousand dollars. During the first decade of the present century, the 
average was nearly five million five hundred thousand dollars. Or, 
commencing with 1791, there followed twenty years of peace, during 
which the annual average of ordinary expenditures was more than 
doubled. Then followed four years, from 1812 to 1815, inclusive, in 
which the war with England swelled the average to twenty-five million 
five hundred thousand dollars. During the five years succeeding that 
war, the average was sixteen million five hundred thousand dollars; 
and it was not until 1821 that the new level of peace was reached. 
During the five years, from 1820 to 1825, inclusive, the annual average 
was eleven million five hundred thousand dollars. From 1825 to 1830 



204 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

it was thirteen million dollars. From 1830 to 1835 it was seventeen mill- 
ion dollars. From 1835 to 1840, in which period occurred the Semi- 
nole war, it was thirty million five hundred thousand. From 1840 to 
1845, it was twenty-seven million dollars. From 1845 to 1850, during 
which occurred the Mexican war, it was forty million five hundred 
thousand dollars. From 1850 to 1855, it was forty-seven million five 
hundred thousand dollars. From 1855 to June 30, 1861, it was sixty- 
seven million dollars. From June 30, 1861, to June 30, 1866, seven 
hundred and thirteen million seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars; 
and from June 30, 1866, to June 30, 1871, the annual average was one 
hundred and eighty-nine million dollars. 

It is interesting to inquire how far we may reasonably exp>ect to go 
in the descending scale before we reach the new level of [jeace. We 
have already seen that it took England twenty years after Waterloo 
before she reached such a level. Our o\\ n experience has been pecu- 
liar in this, that our people have been impatient of debt, and have 
always determinedly set about the work of reducing it. 

Here followed a valuable and carefully prepared table. 

DUK.VTION OF VV,\R EXPE.NDITUKI^S. 

Throughout our history there may be seen a curious uniformity in 
the movement of the annual expenditures for the years immediately 
following a war. We have not the data to determine how long it was, 
after the war of independence, before the expenditures ceased to de- 
crease ; that is, before they reached the point where their natural growth 
more than balanced the tendency to reduction of war expenditure ; but 
in the years immediately following all our subsequent wars, the de- 
crease has continued for a period almost exactly twice the length of the 
war itself. 

After the war of 1812-15, ^^^ expenditures continued to decline for 
eight years, reaching the lowest point in 1823. 

After the Seminole war, which ran through three years, 1836, 1837, 
and 1S3S, the new level was not reached until 1844, six years after its 
close. 

.A.fter the Mexican war, which lasted two years, it took four years, 
until 1852, to reach the new level of peace. 



CxARFIELD AS A FINANCIER, 205 

WHEN SHALL WE REACH OCR NEW LEVEL OF EXPENDITURES? 

It is perhaps unsafe to base our calculations for the future on these 
analogies ; but the wars already referred to have been of such varied 
character, and their financial effects have been so uniform, as to make 
it not unreasonable to expect that a similar result will follow our late 
war. If so, the decrease of our ordinary expenditures, exclusive of 
the principal and interest of the public debt, will continue until 1875 
or 1876. 

It will be seen by an analysis of our expenditures, that, exclusive of 
charges on the public debt, nearly fifty million dollars are expenditures 
directly for the late war. Many of these expenditures will not again 
appear, such as the bounty and back pay of volunteer soldiers, and 
payment of illegal captures of British vessels and cargoes. We may 
reasonably expect that the expenditures for pensions will hereafter 
steadily decrease, unless our legislation should be unwarrantably ex- 
travagant. We may also expect a large decrease in expenditures for 
the internal revenue department. Possibly, we may ultimately be able 
to abolish the department altogether. In the accounting and disburs- 
ing bureaus of the treasury department we may also . expect a further 
reduction of the force now employed in settling war claims. 

\\'e cannot expect so rapid a reduction of the public debt and its 
burden of interest as we have witnessed for the last three years; but 
the reduction will doubtless continue, and burden of interest will con- 
stantly decrease. I know it is not safe to attempt to forecast the 
future; but I venture to express the belief that if peace continues the 
year 1876 will witness our ordinarj' exp>enditures reduced to one hun- 
dred and twenty-five million dollars, and the interest on our public 
debt to ninety-five million dollars; making our total exp>enditures, ex- 
clusive of payment on the principal of the public debt, two hundred 
and thirty million dollars. Judging from our own experience and from 
that of other nations, we may not hope thereafter to reach a lower fig- 
ure. In making this estimate I have assumed that there will be a con- 
siderable reduction of the burdens of taxation, and a revenue not 
nearly so great in excess of the expenditures as we now collect. 

This is the presentation of general principles and 
shows the breadth and grasp of Garfield's mind. 



2o6 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

This rapid reduction of the principal and interest of our public debt 
tends also to strengthen the hope that for three or four years to come 
our expenditures may continue to decrease. It would be cheering, 
indeed, if we might also hope that when the Nation again begins the 
ascent it will be up the beautiful slope where no sign of war shall come 
for many long years. If so, the ascent will be gradual and gentle, and. 
will mark the course of that highway along which the Nation shall 
move upward and forever upward in its grand career of prosperity. 
But let it forever be borne in mind that the day which witnesses a new 
war increases more and more heavily than ever the calamities of the 
past. For the burdens ot the past are mainly the burdens of war, and 
there is a point to which a national debt may rise when its people lose 
heart and grow hopeless under the burden. 

NECESSITY OK REDUCING OUR PUBLIC DEBT. 

Conceding to England all her wealth, all her greatness, and all her 
glory, still one fact in her history is so full of gloomy portent that I 
have never been able to understand how her statesmen could look upon 
it without the profoundest alarm. It would seem that all hope of pay- 
ing off, or even of considerably reducing her public debt, is extin- 
guished in the minds of her people. The last attempt in that direction 
was made by the chancellor of the exchequer, Mr. Gladstone, in his 
speech on the budget of 1866. After affirming that nine leading 
nations of Europe had incurred a debt of no less than one billion five 
hundred million pounds sterling during the last twenty-five years, and 
that, too, in a time of very general peace, he said that America was 
the only great nation of the world that was now considerably reducing 
her debt. Then referring to the British debt, he said : 

"At the close of war against France in i8it;, the British debt was 
nine hundred and two million two hundred and sixty-four thousand 
pounds. On the fifth of January 1854, it was eight hundred million five 
hundred and fifteen thousand pounds. From 1815 to 1854 there were 
nearly forty years of the most profound tranquility ever known in this 
country.' " * ♦ 

"The rate of decrease during that period was two million six hundred 
and nine thousand pounds per annum." * 

* " I do not believe if we take the whole years of peace since 

1815, that the average reduction would reach three million pounds. If 



GARFIELD AS A FINANCIER. 207 

ever we should become involved in any great and protracted war, we 
must expect to see the debt increase at about ten times the annual 
rate by which we reduce it in time of peace." 

A steady though not extravagant reduction of our debt should be the 
fixed policy of the Nation. 

Here followed a luminous exposition of the treasury 
reports of receipts and expenditures, with illustrative 
tables. An examination of the present and of the next 
year's estimates which were compared with those of Great 
Britain, concludes thus: 

I may venture to say for the committee on appropriations, that while 
they have endeavored to follow the line of rigid and reasonable econ- 
omy, they have not forgotten the vastness and variety of the functions 
of government, whose operations should be maintained vigorously and 
generously. It would be a mistake to cut down expenditures in any de- 
partment, so as to cripple any work which must be accomplished, and 
which can better be done at once and ended, by a liberal appropriation 
than to let it drag on through a series of years by reason of insufficient 
appropriations. It is better to make a reduction of whole groups, 
when that can bedone, than merely to cut down individual items. 

But I hojje that members of the house will bear in mind that in many 
of our civil departments we have large forces of employes, which the 
settlement of war accounts made necessary, and which, when their 
work is done, it will require no little courage and effort to reduce to a 
peace basis. In doing so, it would be well for us to adopt the sentiment 
recently expressed by Mr. Gladstone, in the house of commons, that — 

' ' The true way to save is not the cutting down of single items, but a 
more complete organization of our departments, and the determina- 
tion, that for whatever the country spends, it shall have full value in 
labor, talent, or materials." 

In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, I thank the members of the house for 
the patience with which they have listened to these dry details, and for 
the kind attention with which they have honored me. I yield the floor 
for any remarks which other gentlemen may desire to make, and then I 
shall submit the bill to the judgment of the committee of the whole. 



2o8 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

As a general unfolding and discussion of elementary 
principles, also an exposition of that portion of a budget 
which deals with expenditure, this stands as the first and 
ablest in the house. It opened a new era. 

The legislative bill became, in Mr. Garfield's hands, the 
budget bill of the house. On its introduction at the first 
session of the Forty-third congress, he again made an 
elaborate presentation of his views generally. I repro- 
duce some of its leading propositions to be taken with 
the speech just quoted from : 

The bill now pending before the committee of the whole is the best 
gauge by which to measure the magnitude and cost of the National 
government. Its provisions extend to every leading function of the 
government in the three great departments — legislative, executive and 
judicial — and includes the civil functions of the military and naval es- 
tablishments. It appropriates for all the salaries and contingent ex- 
penses of all the officers and employes of the civil service. If its pro- 
visions could be thrown upon canvas, they would form an outline map 
exhibiting the character and the magnitude of the government of the 
United States. 

This is the proper standpoint from which to study the public expen- 
ditures, to examine the relation of expenditures to taxation, and of 
both to the prosperity and well-being of the Nation. ♦ * * 

The necessary expenditures of the government form the base line 
from which we measure the amount of our taxation required, and on 
which we base our system of finance. We have frequently heard it 
remarked, since the session began, that we should make our expendi- 
tures come within our revenues — that we should "cut our garment ac-_ 
cording to our cloth." This theory may be correct when applied to 
private affairs, but it is not applicable to the wants of nations. Our 
national expenditures should be measured by the real necessities and 
the proper needs of the go%emment. We should cut our garment so 
as to fit the person to be clothed. If he be a giant, we must provide 
cloth sufficient for a fitting garment. 



GARFIELD AS A FINANCIER. 209 

The committee on appropriations are seeking earnestly to reduce the 
expenditures of the government ; but they reject the doctrine that they 
should at all hazards reduce the expenditures to the level of the rev- 
enues, however small those revenues may be. They have attempted 
rather to ascertain what are the real and vital necessities of the govern- 
ment ; to find what amount of money will suffice to meet all its honor- 
able obligations, to carry on all its necessary and essential functions, 
and to keep alive those public enterprises which the country desires its 
government to undertake and accomplish. When the amount of ex- 
penses necessary to meet these objects is ascertained, that amount 
should be appropriated ; and ways and means for procurmg that 
amount should be provided. 

There are some advantages in the British system of managing their 
finances. In the annual budget reported to the house of commons, ex- 
penditures and taxation are harnessed together. If appropriations are 
increased, taxes are correspondingly increased. If appropriations are 
reduced, a reduction of taxes accompanies the reduction. 

On some accounts, it is unfortunate that our work of appropriations 
is not connected directly with the work of taxation. If this were so, 
the necessity of ta.xation would be a constant check upon extravagance, 
and the practice of economy would promise, as its immediate result, 
the pleasure of reducing taxation. 

SURPLUS AND DEFICIT. 

Revenues and expenditures may be considered from two points of 
view ; in relation to the people and their industries, and in relation to 
the government and the effective working of its machinery. So far as 
the people are concerned, they willingly bear the burdens of taxation, 
when they see that their contributions are honestly and wisely ex- 
pended to maintain the government of their choice, and to accomplish 
those objects which they consider necessary for the general welfare. 
So far as the government is concerned, the soundness of its financial 
aifairs depends upon the annual surplus of the revenue over expendi- 
tures. A steady and constant revenue drawn from sources that repre- 
sent the prosperity of the Nation— a revenue that grows with the 
growth of national wealth, and is so adjusted to the expenditures that 
a constant and considerable surplus is annually left in the treasury 
above all the necessary current demands ; a surplus that keeps the 
14 



2IO LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

treasury strong, that holds it above the fear of a sudden panic ; that 
makes it impregnable against all private combmations ; that makes it a 
terror to all stock-jobbing and gold-gambling — this is financial health. 
This is the situation that wise statesmanship should endeavor to sup- 
port and maintain. 

Of course in this discussion I leave out the collateral though impor- 
tant subject of banking and currency. The surplus, then, is the key to 
our financial situation. Every act of legislation should be studied in 
view of its effects upon the surplus. Two sets of forces are constantly 
acting upon the surplus. It is increased by the growth of the revenue 
and by the decrease of expenditure. It is decreased by the repeal or 
reduction of taxation, and by the increase of expenditures. When both 
forces conspire agamst it, when taxes are diminished and expenditures 
are increased, the surplus disappears. 

With the disappearance of tlie surplus comes disaster — disaster to 
the treasury, disaster to the public credit, disaster to all the public in- 
terests. In times of peace, when no sudden emergency has made a 
great and imperious demand upon the treasury, a deficit cannot occur 
except as tlie result of unwise legislation or reckless and unwarranted 
administration. That legislation may consist in too great an increase 
of appropriations, or in too great a reduction of taxation, or in both 
combined. 

HISTORY AND CAUSE OK DEFICITS. 

Twice in the history of this Nation a deficit has occurred in time of 
peace. In both instances it has occurred because congress went too far 
in the reduction of taxation — so far as to cripple the revenues and de- 
plete the treasury. It may be worth our while to study those periods 
of our history in which deficits have thus occurred. 

I do not speak of periods of war, for then the surplus is always 
maintained by the aid of loans; but I speak of deficits occurring in 
times of peace. From the close of the last war with England, in 1815, 
our revenues maintained a healthy and steady growth, interrupted only 
by years of financial crisis. A constant surplus was maintained suffi- 
cient to keep the treasury steady and diminish the public debt, and 
finally complete its pa\ ment. But in 1833, the great financial discussion, 
which at one time threatened to dissolve the Union, was ended by the 
pr.ssage of the compromise tariff of 1833 — a law that provided for the 



1 



GARFIELD AS A FINANCIER. 211 

scaling down of the rates of taxation on imports in each alternate year 
until 1842, when all should be reduced to the uniform rate of twenty per 
cent, lid valorem. 

By this measure the revenues were steadily decreased, and in 1840 
the treasury was empty. During the nine preceding years the receipts 
into the treasury had averaged thirty-two millions a year; but in 1840 
they had fallen to nineteen and a half millions, and in 1841 to less than 
seventeen millions. True, the expenditures had grown with the growth 
of the country; but no large or sudden expenditure appeared in any of 
those years. The deficit appeared, and it was unquestionably due to 
too great a reduction of taxation. This deficit brought political and 
financial disaster. To meet it a special session of congress was con- 
vened in June, 1841, and President Tyler sent in his message, in which 
he declared that by the end of the fiscal year of March 4, 1842, there 
would be a deficit of eleven million four hundred and six thousand 
one hundred and thirty-two dollars and ninety-eight cents, and a fur- 
ther deficit by September, 1842, of four million eight hundred and forty- 
five thousand dollars. 

In his message of December 7, 1841, he reported a still further de- 
ficit, and declared that these accumulated deficits were the results of 
the too great reduction of taxation by the legislation of 1833. These 
accumulated deficits amounted to more than all the receipts for that 
year. They were to that time what a deficit of three hundred millions 
would be to us to-day. 

I understood the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Dawes^ to de- 
clare that congjress had never increased taxation in time of peace. 
Our history does not bear him out in this assertion. 

The congress of 1841-42 was called upon to repair the wasted reve- 
nues by an increase of ta.xation. The debates of that body show that 
the bill they passed was treated wholly as a necessity of the revenue. 
The bill itself was entitled "An act to provide revenue for the govern- 
ment." It became a law in 1842, and under its influence the revenues 
revived. In 1S43 tiie surplus reappseared, and again the revenues con- 
tinued to grow with the growth of the country. 

Excepting the period of the Mexican war, which, like all other mod- 
em wars, was supported by the aid of loans, the surplus continued 
down to and including the first year of Buchanan's administration. 



212 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

During the four years of Pierce's administration, the revenues had ex- 
ceeded seventy millions a year; but in the first year of Buchanan's 
term, an act was passed so largely reducing the duties on imports that 
the revenues dropped to forty-six and a half millions in 1858, and a 
deficit appeared which continued and accumulated until the coming in 
of Lincoln's administration. 

Let us notice the growth of that deficit. On the first day of July, 
1857, the public debt, less cash in the treasury, was eleven millions three 
hundred and fifty thousand two hundred and seventy dollars and si.xty- 
three cents; on the first day of July, i860, the accoimt stood, total debt, 
less cash in the treasury, sixty-one million one hundred and forty-seven 
thousand four hundred and ninety-seven dollars, showing a deficit ot 
fifty millions in the space of three years. When Mr. Lincoln was in- 
augurated, in 1861, the debt had increased to nearly ninety millions 
and there had accumulated a deficit of more than seventy millions, 
and those four years of Buchanan's administration were not years of 
extraordinary expenditures. Indeed, during those four years, the ex- 
penditures had not averaged so great as in the last year of the adminis- 
tration of Mr. Pierce. The deficit then did not arise from an increase 
of expenditure, but from a decrease of revenue. For four years the 
government had been paymg its ordinary expenses by the aid of loans 
at ruinous rates, and by forced loans in the form of treasury notes. 
Here, as in the former case, the final remedy for the deficit was taxa- 
tion. 

The first act of the last session of congress in Buchanan's term was 
an act to authorize the issue of treasury notes to meet the expenditures 
of the government; and almost the last act of that session was the act 
of March 2, 1861, to provide for the payment of outstanding treasury 
notes, and to meet the expenditures of the government by increasing 
the duties on imports. This act was passed by a Republican congress, 
and was reluctantly approved by a President whose policy and whose 
party had produced the deficit, and brought financial distress upon the 
country by cutting too deeply and too recklessly into the public reve- 
nues. 

RECENT CONDITION OF THE TREASURY. 

Mr. Chairman, when the house convened in December last, we were 
startled by the decl.aration that another deficit was aliout to appear. 



GARFIELD AS A FINANCIER. 213 

W'e were informed that we might look for a deficit of forty-two millions 
by the end of the current fiscal year. This announcement was indeed 
the signal for alarm throughout the country; and it became the imper- 
ative duty of congress to inquire as to whether there would be a deficit, 
and if so, to ascertain its cause and provide the remedv. 

In this instance, to the ordinary causes that produce a deficit, there 
had been superadded the disastrous financial calamity that visited a 
portion of the business interests of this country in September last; a 
panic that fell with unparalleled weight and suddenness, and swept like 
a tornado, leaving destruction in its track. We have not yet suffi- 
ciently recovered from the shock to be able to measure with accuracy 
the magnitude of its effects. We cannot yet tell how soon and how 
completely the revenues of the country will recover from the shock. 
But we have sufficient data to ascertain, with some degree of accuracy, 
the part that the legislation of congress has played in producing the 
situation in which we now find ourselves. 

That we may more clearly trace the legislative steps by which we 
have reached our present position, I invite your attention to the condi- 
tion of our finances at the close of the war. Leaving out of view the 
fiscal year ending J une 30, 1865, in which there were paid over the counter 
of the treasury the enormous sum of one billion two hundred and 
ninety million dollars, the accumulated products of taxation and of 
loans, we begin our examination with the \ear that followed the close 
of the war, the fiscal year ending June 30, 1866. In that year, our 
aggregate revenues, from all sources, exclusive of loans, amounted to 
five hundred and fifty-eight million dollars, and our expenditures to 
nearly five hundred and twenty-one million dollars, leaving us a clear 
surplus of thirty-seven million dollars. These were the gigantic propor- 
tions of our income and our payments. From these as a base line we 
sketch the subsequent history of our finances. From these vast totals 
the work of triple reduction began — reduction of the revenue by there- 
peal of taxes, reduction of ordinary payments by the decrease of expendi- 
tures, reduction of the public debt by applying to it the annual surplus. 

Then follows a history of surplus and reduction of 
taxation, since the war, witli tables and results, after which 
he mildly solaces liimself and warns others, thus: 



214 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

Mr. Chairman, it is a grateful task to remove burdens from the in- 
dustries and the earnings of the American people. No more grateful 
work can an .\merican congress be called upon to perform. But while 
we are relieving the people from the burdens of taxation, it should al- 
ways be borne in mind that we are in danger of so crippling the rev- 
enues as to embarrass the government and endanger the public credit. 
It is a great thing to remove all burdensome taxes; but there is danger 
that while congress may imitate Tennyson's Godiva, who — 
Took away the tax, 
.^nd built herself an everlasting name, — 
yet in so doing, it may cause the public credit to go forth from a de- 
spoiled treasury, and, like the Lady Godiva, ride naked in the streets 
of the world. We have had abounding faith in the elasticity of our 
revenues. We have found that even reduction of rates freciuently 
brine's us increased revenues; that the buoyant and almost immortal life 
of our industries will make the tree of our revenues bloom again, how 
oftensoever we may pluck its flowers and its fruits. We think of it as 
the fabled tree which Virgil's hero found in tiie grove of Avemus. 
Whenever the bough of gold was plucked away, another sprang out in 
its place: 

Prime avuUo non deficit alter 
Aureus; et simili frondescit virga metallo. 

But, sir, we may pluck the golden lx)ugh once too often. We may 
pluck away with it the living forces of the tree itself. 

Thus refreshed, he continues the broad discussion of 
surplus and deficit, with apt reference to our own ex- 
perience. Then he takes up our recent expenditure, 
which called up Mr. Dawes, his predecessor. The whole 
is illustrated by carefully prepared tables and figures. 
This only brings us through the first third of this very 
statesman like performance. 

The conference report on the tariff bill being before 
the house on the twenty-third of the following June, 
which gave scope for the counterpart of his budget, he 
submitted to the house a clear and forcible presentation 



GARFIELD AS A FINANCIER. 215 

of it, supplementing the effort just brought to our notice. 
The reader is now in possession of the means of form- 
ing an estimate of the views of Mr. Garfield upon the 
great subjects of money, the currency, taxation and ex- 
penditure, with so much of his reasoning as enables him 
to see the grounds on which they rest ; and it is not my 
purpose to return to either of them, though six years of 
congressional life remain to be glanced at. I turn back 
to refer to an episode. 

REMOVAL OF THE FLATHEADS. 

In the vacation of the summer of 1872, General Gar- 
field went on a mission to the Indian country, by ap- 
pointment of the executive. 

The Flat/ieads, occupying the valley of the Bitter 
Root, or Snake river, had long refused to comply with 
their engagement to remove to a new reservation, some 
hundred miles distant. With his characteristic thorough- 
ness, he began with Lewis and Clarke's expedition, and 
read up all the literature on the Indian question. He 
started in May, this threader of the intricacies of bud- 
gets, accompanied by the companion of his European 
tour, and sweet child, Mollie, whom he left at Leaven- 
worth, and himself staged the four hundred and fifty 
miles between Salt Lake City and the Snake. The 
Flatheads were all Catholics, and numbered five or six 
hundred— a superior order of the natives, with some 
rudiments of civilization. There were plenty of stories 
of Lewis and Clarke, who were there more than sixty 
years before. He saw an elderly, intelligent half-breed, 
the reputed son of Captain Clarke, whose fiame-red hair 



2l6 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

testified of the probability of the story. The general him- 
self visited the reservation and judged of its capacity and 
fitness for their residence. On his return he assembled 
the Indians and the agents, when after a two or three 
days' talk, two of the three chiefs assented to the terms 
he was authorized to offer, and he was thus able to ex- 
ecute his mission satisfactorily. 

On their way back, at Chicago, he purchased a paper 
and there read the first account of the Credit Mobilier 
embroglio. He hurried on to Washington, made his re- 
port to the President on the thirteenth or fourteenth of 
September, and at once secured the publication of the 
statement of the facts he always made, and calmly 
awaited what time might unfold. Through all of the 
not quite forty-one years of his eventful life, this was the 
first whisper derogatory of his name. In the next part 
of my labors, the reader will find an exhaustive expose of 
this, and the other two charges which came upon him at 
about the same time, one of which grew out of his con- 
scientious discharge of his duties as the head of the com- 
mittee on appropriations, and another was calumniously 
connected with it. 

Let no reader be deterred by the seeming length of 
what is offered him. He will there find all the original 
material from which he can form a satisfactory judgment 
of General Garfield's conduct, in all the cases referred 
to, and I have written thus far in vain, if I have not 
shown that the thus assailed man is fully entitled to 
have each of his countrymen examine and decide for 
himself, the merits of these charges. 




PRIVATE RESIDENCE AND 

OFFICE OF 

JAMES A. GARFIELD, 

MENTOR, O. 



PART THIRD, 



He is Calumniated, 



CHAPTER I. 

A CHAPTER ON SLANDERS. 

Credit Mobilier.— The Charge and How Met.— Union of Credit Mo- 
biher with the Union Pacific. — Its Purpose and Plans. — Oakes 
Ames, Trustee, Places His Stock, and How. — Suit and Exposure. — 
Gai-field's Prompt Action. — Blaine Demands an Investigation. — The 
Committee. — Its Report E.\onerates Garfield from Blame. — Leaves 
Him E.xposed to Charge of Perjury. — Case Considered. — All the Evi- 
dence Given. — Ames Impeaches Himself.— Contradicted by His Pa- 
pers and Writings. — No Case. — Garfield's Statement. — Its Support. 
— Wholly Innocent. 

Living and walking on a level above the heads of 
dealers in votes, caucus and convention managers, never 
having an acquaintance with the makers and workers ot 
rings; surrounded by an atmosphere too raeified and 
cold for subsidists and lobbyists, the jobbers in congres- 
sional legislation ; never having about him men of whom 
questions are asked and whose ways lie through the un- 
known, he was suddenly compelled to pass the ordeal of 
calumny, relentless as slander is, and come to appreciate 
the fugacious tenure of reputation, and be compelled to 
fall back, and in, upon himself. 

The three charges, "Venal Dealing in Stock," "The 
DeGolycr Contract," and "Salary Grab," like three 
assaulting hosts, came upon him by surprise. Allies 
they were, each giving might to the others, though j/.ob- 
ably had it not been insisted that he was vulnerable to 



220 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

the first, the other two would have been less fierce and 
persistent. 

CREDIT MOBILIER. 

The alleged stock transaction is supposed to have oc- 
curred late in 1867 or early in 1868. No assailant has 
been able to fix its date. As we have seen, it transpired 
to the public, and took form, in the summer or autumn 
of 1872. This seeming cover of time and silence gave it 
added weight and wings. The charge involved many, 
each of whom had been regarded as unapproachable by 
corruption. The number involved, their high personal 
characters, in the curious illogic of the public mind 
dealing with charges upon men, gave it force and weight 
instead of doubt and improbability. 

On the second day of the third session of the Forty- 
second congress, Mr. Blaine, whose name was on the list 
of the proscribed, acting by request of others, demanded 
an immediate investigation by the house, and a commit- 
tee of five was appointed, consisting of Luke P. Poland, 
Nathaniel P. Banks, George W. McCrary, William E. 
Niblack and William M. Merrick, all men ranking with 
the first of the body, and the two last among the ablest 
of the representative men of the Democracy. After a 
patient and exhaustive hearing, in which all known sources 
of information were used in all the known and un- 
known ways of congressional investigations, the commit- 
tee having perfect jurisdiction of the case, unanimously 
exonerated Mr. Garfield. No man of the house before 
believed him guilty. No member has ever since given it 
credit, or will repeat the charge. 



A CHAPTER OF SLANDERS. 221 

On the eighth of May, 1873, Mr. Garfield him- 
self gave a masterly expose of the case to the public, 
which seemed to clarify the atmosphere of all the color- 
ing matter that the committee left suspended in it. 
There is no silencing malice, or answering the scruples 
of aspiring rivals. They did not immediately die out. 
The year following was their apparent opportunity, and 
he was assailed in his own district, on all the charges. 
On the nineteenth of September, 1874, he invited friends 
and enemies to a discussion of all the charges, now 
boldly made upon him. That was the vital issue in his 
pending re-election. There, in a calm, colorless manner, 
clear and forceful, he distinctly stated each charge, and 
exposed and disproved it, calling upon any and all to 
answer or deny his statements or conclusions, giving them 
ample time for that purpose. No one undertook the 
hopeless task. The issues thus made his people adjudged 
in his favor, and from that no appeal has ever been made. 
It was taken as conclusive in the State, and reaffirmed 
by his unanimous nomination and election by the Re- 
publicans of the Ohio legislature to the senate of the 
United States. His recent national nomination is an af- 
firmation of the judgment of congress and of his own 
people. 

During all the time of the congressional investigation, 
as during all the years since, men and women, the purest 
in the land, of lives the most elevated and blameless, 
men of the most exalted positions, of unquestioned 
integrity and purposes, sought and associated with him, 
cultivated his society, gave him their trust, their luve, 



22 2 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

and applause. They hailed his nomination as an omen, 
a pledge for the elevation of our politics, and the purifi- 
cation of our highest public and national life. 

Against slander there is no plea of former accjuittal ; no 
statute of limitations is a bar ; no trust, no faith, no love 
however profound and universal are the least protection 
against it. Every man, wherever he stands, however 
surrounded, is within reach, exposed to its shafts. 

It may be said that the judgment of the house of rep- 
resentatives, of the State of Ohio, of a national conven- 
tion, do not bind the people of the Republic, and these 
questions of fraud and misconduct may be heard in the 
great forum. The charges are not now renewed because 
any intelligent man believes them, nor for the purpose of 
injuring the candidate as a man, but it is a means of 
war which may embarrass, possibly harm, political oppo- 
nents in a national contest for power. I will deal with 
this matter as a new question. 

It is alleged that in December, 1867, or January, 
1868, Mr. Garfield in effect corruptly purchased and 
held for some time, ten shares of stock of a corporate 
body, known as the Credit Mobilier, and that he real- 
ized by the transaction three hundred and twenty-nine 
dollars. 

If there was fraud in this transaction it can be shown 
precisely where it resides, and the evidence can be pointed 
out that proves it. The stock itself must have been 
tainted, or there was fraud in the purchase, or the pur- 
pose of the acquisition was bad. 

Some things need to be stated for a clear apprecia- 



A CHAPTER OF SLANDERS. 223 

tion of the case. The Union Pacific railroad company 
was chartered by congress. It received large subsidies of 
land to secure its construction. Congress promised a 
liberal loan of United States bonds, deliverable upon the 
completion of its sections. Should these prove inade- 
quate, the company was authorized to issue its own bonds, 
and to the extent of the insufficiency of the United 
States bonds, to pay for the construction; these con- 
struction bonds of the company were to be prior in 
security to the debt of the company to the United States 
for its bonds. The government of the United States ap- 
pointed two of the directors, and retained the right to 
annul the company's charter. These great advantages 
were secured to the company by act of congress of July, 
1864. No further legislation was sought by the company. 
In 1859 Pennsylvania incorporated a company which 
afterward took the name Credit Mobilier from the French 
company of that name, with a capital of two million 
five hundred thousand dollars, which was afterward, by 
its own action, increased to three million seven hundred 
and fifty thousand dollars. Its declared purpose was to 
use its capital to aid the construction of great works of 
improvement the profits of the building of which would be 
dividends on its stock. Later, Thomas C. Durant, of New 
York, who was largely an owner and manager of the rail- 
road company and the Credit Mobiher, and Oakes Ames, 
of Massachusetts, who was also a stockholder in both com- 
panies, united their energies, genms, and means, for the 
construction of the road, the building up of the Credit 
Mobilier, and th-^? enriching of themselves and associates. 



224 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

The means employed were by a contract, executed in 
August, 1867, between Oakes Ames and the Union Pa- 
cific, for the construction of six hundred and sixty-seven 
miles of railroad for the sum of forty-seven million nine 
hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars. 

In October, 1867, another contract was made between 
Oakes Ames, the Credit Mobilier, and seven trustees, to 
whom Ames had assigned the contract for construction, 
by which the Credit Mobilier was to advance money to 
build the road at a rate of interest and commissions of 
nine and one-half per-cent. All the leading holders of 
Union Pacific stock were holders of Credit Mobilier 
stock. To ensure the perpetual control of the Union 
Pacific, it was desirable that the seven trustees should 
hold perpetual proxies of the Union Pacific stock, and 
thus secure the direction of the company. To ensure 
this, the profits of the Ames construction contract were 
to be divided only among the holders of the Credit Mo- 
bilier stock, who, as holders of the Union Pacific stock, 
should deliver their proxies to the seven. All this is 
shown in Willson's (2d Cred. Mob.), Rep. No. 78, 42d 
Cong., 3d Ses. 

It should be stated, that as in effect, the principal 
stockholders of the Union Pacific, thus contracted with 
themselves as the Credit Mobilier, to build the road, for 
which the bonds of the United States were to pay. It was 
at enormous profits, so great that the Credit Mobilier 
stock from below par in a few months was worth three 
or four times its par value, though none was ever in the 
market. This is apparent from both the Poland and 



A CHAPTER OF SLANDERS. 225 

Wilson reports. The case I am considering assumes 
that the dividends of the one thousand dollars of stock, 
paid for itself in five months, with a balance over ' of 
three hundred and twenty-nine dollars. Also, it should 
be remembered, that by this device, under the provision 
of the act of July, i86^, which permitted the Union 
Pacific to issue its own bonds, and give them priority in 
security over its debt to the United States for its bonds, 
it managed to displace them, and thrust in its own in 
advance of them, as first mortgage bonds. The Poland 
committee justly holds this to be a fraud upon the 
United States. Obviously terms and devices so extraor- 
dinary would be kept within the counsel of the conspir- 
ators. That it did not transpire to the world, and was 
not disclosed by Oaks Ames to the implicated members 
of congress, is the concurrent testimony of all the wit- 
nesses, and the unanimous finding of the Poland com- 
mittee. 

In the autumn of 1867, there seem to have been six 
hundred and fifty shares of Credit Mobilier unsold, and 
some controversy arose between Durant, Ames and 
Henry S. McComb, a large stockholder, as to their dis- 
lX)sition. Each claimed that he needed them to fill pro- 
mises to applicants. Ames was finally permitted to re- 
ceive three hundred and forty-three shares at par and in- 
terest from the preceding July. Thus armed Oakes Ames 
a member of the house made his peaceful way to the 
capital, on his mission of placing this stock, in accord- 
ance with the rule of his life, as stated in his letters found 
further on. He selected his depositaries with care, m 



226 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

every instance his political, and some of them, his personal 
friends, who had entire confidence in his business tact 
and honesty. Men of nice integrity who would never be 
suspected, whom he could have had no wish to involve in 
difficulty, and neither of whom — he nor any man — would 
dream of approaching with a corrupt proposition. To 
each he sold or offered to sell at par, with interest from 
July. To no one did he disclose the relations of the 
two corporations, nor yet the enormous value of the 
stock. To assure some, he guaranteed a profit of ten 
per cent. Some paid him. Some did not. He was in- 
different about that. To not more than one, was the 
stock transferred. It stood in his name, he received the 
dividends, converted the bonds received and paid over, in 
a careless, pleasant way, as a man would, who had a secret, 
which some of them might blunder on, if each trans- 
acted his own business for himself His transaction was 
with each separately. He told no one of his sales to 
either of the others, and each kept his own counsels. 
That there was no understanding between Ames and each 
of these men, nor between them as there would have 
been, had the purpose on their part been corrupt, is 
proved by the surprise and panic produced, when the 
real character of the arrangement was made known. 
Even then, there was no concert, save to demand a trial. 
Ames had a purpose. He did not desire further legisla- 
tion. The Union Pacific had not asked it. He was 
afraid that certain prominent men might ask impertinent 
questions in the house. He wanted silent, independent 
influence in different parts of the house. He did not 



J 



A CHAPTER OF SLANDERS. 227 

intimate that he wanted it; did not disclose the real 
value of the commodity he was selling. That might lead 
to inquiries. Having planted his stocks, he wrote his 
letters of January 25th and 30th, and placidly pursued 
his peaceful way. 

About the time of this stock planting by Oakes, Mr. H. 
S. ^McComb planted a suit in the Pennsylvania courts 
against him, to recover these very shares, and time giving 
birth to other events, passed silently over both transac- 
tions. In the summer of 1872, the Pennsylvania case 
sprung into flower. McComb gave his deposition, and 
produced the following letters — reproduced before the 
Poland committee, where he testified: 

Washington, January 26, 1868. 

H. S. McCoMB, Esq.— Deur Sir: Yours of the twenty-third is at 
hand, in which you say Senators Bayard and Fowler have written to 
you in relation to their stock. I have spoken to Fowler, but not to 
Bayard. I have never been introduced to Bayard, but will see him 
soon. You say I must not put too much in one locality. I have as- 
signed, as far as I have given, to four from Massachusetts; one from 
New Hampshire; one, Delaware; one, Tennessee; one-half, Ohio; 
two, Pennsylvania; one, Indiana; one, Maine; and I have three to 
place, which I shall put where they will do most good to us. I am 
here on the spot, and can better judge where they should go. I think 
after this dividend is paid we should make our capital four million dol- 
lars, and 'distribute the new stock where it will protect us. Let them 
have the stock at par, and profits made in the future. The fifty per 
cent, increase on the old stock I want for distribution here, and soon. 
Alley is opposed to the division of the bonds, says he will need them, 
&.C., &c. I should think that we ought to be able to spare them with 
Alley and Cisco on the finance committee. We used to be able to 
borrow when we had no credit and debts pressing; we are now out of 
debt and in good credit. What say you about the bond dividend? 
.A part of the purchasers here are poor, and want their bonds to sell to 



228 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

enable them to meet their payment on the stock in the C. ^L I hri\e 
told them what they would get as dividends, and they expect, I think 
— when the bonds the parties received as the eighty per cent, dividend, 
we better give them the bonds. It will not amout to anything with us. 
Some of the large owners will not care whether they have the bonds or 
certificates, or they will lend their bond to the company, as they have 
done before, or lend them money. (Juigley has been here, and we 
have got that one-tenth that was L'nderwood's. I have taken a half, 
Quigley a quarter, and you a quarter. 

Judge Carter wants a part of it. At some future day we are to sur- 
render a part to him. Yours truly, 

Oakes Ames. 

\V.\SHlNGTON, January 30, 1868. 

H. S. McCOMB. — Dear Sir: Yours of the 28th is at hand inclosing 
copy of letter from, or rather to, Mr. King. I don't fear any investiga- 
tion here. What some of Durant's friends may do in New York cant 
be counted on with any certainty. You do not understand by your 
letter what I have done and am to do with my sales of stock. You say 
more to New York. I have placed some with New York, or have 
agreed to. You must remember that it was nearly all placed as you 
saw on the list in New York, and there was but about 6 or 8 M for me 
to place. I could not give all they wanted or they might want out of 
that. You would not want me to offer less than one thousand (M) to 
any one. We allowed Durant to place $58,000 to some three or four 
of his friends or keep it himself. / have used this where it luill produce 
most good to us I thin/;. 

In view of King's letter and Washburn's move here, I go in for 
making one bond dividend in full. We can do it with perfect safety. 
I understand the opposition to it comes from Alley. He is on the 
Finance Committee, and can raise money easy if we come short, which 
I don't believe we shall; and if we do, we can loan our bonds to the 
Company, or loan them the money we get for the bonds. The contract 
calls for the division, and I say have it. When shall I see you in 
Washington? Yours truly, Oakes Ames. 

McConib sued Ames for this very stock, gave his de- 
position, and thus these letter? transpired to the public, 



A CHAPTER OF SLANDERS. 229 

and produced wide-spread excitement. General Garfield 
was then in the Indian country, as will be remembered, 
and on his return first heard and saw them, on the thir- 
teenth or fourteenth of September. He immediately 
called upon his friend, Gen. H. V. Boynton, of the Cin- 
cinnati Gazette, and authorized the following, which 
appeared in that print, September 15th: 

" General Garfield, who has just arrived from the Indian country, has 
to-day had the first opportunity of seeing the charges connecting his 
name with receiving shares of the Credit Mobilier from Oakes Ames. 
He authorizes the statement that he never subscribed for a single share 
of the stock, and that he never received or saw a share of it. When 
the company was first formed, George Francis Train, then active in it, 
came to Washington and exhibited a list of subscribers, of leading cap- 
italists, and some members of congress, to the stock of the company. 
The'subscription was described as a popular one of one thousand dol- 
lars cash. Train urged General Garfield to subscribe on two occasions, 
and each time he declined. Subsequently he was again informed that 
the list was nearly completed, but that a chance remained for him to 
subscribe, when he again declined, and to this day he has not subscribed 
for or received any share of stock or bond of the companv." 

The sittings of the Poland committee, as will be re- 
membered, were attended by excited crowds, and among 
the statements of the daily press were repeated accounts 
of the dismay of the gentlemen whose names appeared 
m Mr. Ames' list. The paragraph from the Gazette 
shows that none of these statements applied to General 
Garfield. Mr. Train's- connection with the Credit Mo- 
bilier is apparent by other evidence. In his account of 
that company Mr. McComb says: 

"The Credit Mobilier corporation was the result. of a charter ob- 
tamed by a man named Duff Green, from the Pennsylvania legislature, 
called the 'Pennsylvania Fiscal Agency.' It was subsequently changed 



230 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

by legislative enactment to the Credit Mobilier of America, and some 
little change made in its provisions. It was purchased by Thomas C. 
Durani, from a man in Pennsylvania named Hall, and George Francis 
Train. It was purchased especially with a view of building the Pacific 
railroad. The Pennsylvania legislature made an amendment in the 
charter allowmg a branch office to be in New York, and providing that 
it should be managed by what was cabled a railway bureau, all of whom 
need not be directors of the cox\\\-i'xn\ ." —Poland' s Report, page j. 

Thomas C. Durant said — 

Some parties were interested in this Pennsylvania fiscal agency when 
I first went into the Credit Mobilier. They had taken a few shares of 
stock before the brancli was established in New York, under the amend- 
ed charter. I sent Mr. Train to Philadelphia. W'e wanted it for a 
stock operation, but could not agree what was to tjc done with it. Mr. 
Train proposed to go on an expanded scale, but I abandoned it. 1 
think Mr. Train got some subscriptions; what they were I do not know; 
they were never collected and returned to the company.— /(/. page ibg. 

The Poland committee was created by, and sat under, 
the following resolution: 

Whereas, accusations have been made in the public press, founded on 
alleged letters of Oakes Ames, a representative from Massachusetts, 
and upon the alleged affidavits of Henry S. McComb, a citizen of Wil- 
mington, in the State of Delaware, to the effect that members of this 
house were bribed by Oakes Ames to perform certain legislative acts 
for the benefit of the Union Pacific railroad company, by presents of 
stock in the Credit Mobilier of America, or by jjresents of a valuable 
character derived therefrom ; Therefore, 

Resolved, That a special committee of five be appointed by the 
speaker pro tempore, whose duty it shall be to investigate whether any 
member of this house was bribed by Oakfes Ames, or any other person 
or corporation, in any matter touching his legislative duty. 

Re-ol'oed further. That the committee have the right to employ a 
stenographer, and that they be empowered to send for persons and 
papers. — Poland Reports, page i. 

It began its labors December 12th, and sat many weeks, 



A CHAFFER OF SLAXDERS. 231 

filling over five hundred pages with the sworn statements 
of many men, chief of whom was the unhappy Oakes 
Ames. On the eighteenth of February the committee 
made its final report, written by the chairman. 

The following is so much of this paper as deals with 
the charge against Mr. Garfield : 

The facts in regard to Mr. Garfield, as found b}' the committee, are 
identical with the case of Mr. Kelley to the point of reception of the 
check for three hundred and twenty-nine dollars. He agreed with Mr. 
Ames to take ten shares of Credit Mobilier stock, but did not pay for 
the same. Mr. Ames received the eighty per cent, dividend in bonds, 
and sold them for ninety-seven percent., and also received the sixty per 
cent, cash dividend, which together paid the price of the stock and 
interest, and left a balance of three hundred and twenty-nine dollars. 
This sum was paid over to Mr. Garfield by a check on the sergeant-at- 
arms, and Mr. Garfield then understood this sum was the balance of 
dividends after paying for the stock. Mr. Ames received all the subse- 
quent dividends, and the committee do not tind that, since the payment 
of the three hundred and twenty-nine dollars, there has been any com- 
mimication between Mr. Ames and Mr. Garfield on the subject until 
this investigation began. Some correspondence between Mr. Garfield 
and Mr. Ames, and some conversations between them during this in- 
%-estigation, will be found in the reported testimony. ^ - «- 

The committee do not find that Mr. Ames, in his negotiations with 
the persons above named, entered into any detail of the relations be- 
tween the Credit Mobilier company and the Union Pacific company, or 
gave them any specific information as to the amount of dividends they 
would be likely to receive further than has been already stated. * * 

In his negotiations with these members of congress, Mr. Ames made 
no suggestion that he desired to secure their favorable influence in con- 
gress in favor of the railroad company, and whenever the question was 
raised as to whether the ownership of this stock would in any way 
interfere with or embarrass them in their action as members of congress, 
he assured them it would not. 

The committee, therefore, do not find, as to the members of the 



22,2 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

present house above named, * that they were aware of the object of 
Mr. Ames, or that they had any other purpose in taking this stock than 
to make a profitable investment. « * * * 

It ought also to be stated that no one of the present members of the 
house abovv> named appears to have had any knowledge of the dealings 
of Mr. Ames with other members. 

The committee do not find that either of the above named gentle- 
men, in contracting with Mr. Ames, had any corrupt motive or purpose 
himself, or was aware that Mr. Ames had any, nor did either of them 
suppose he was guilty of any impropriety or even indelicacy in becom- 
ing a purchaser of this stock. Had it appeared that these gentlemen 
were aware of the enormous dividends upon this stock, and how they 
were to be earned, we ould not thus acquit them. 

Mr. Poland is an able and learned man. There was 
within his easy reach ample material for a vigorous, dis- 
criminating, judicial disposition of the case, which would 
have saved us further labor. It lacks all those qualities. 
It is feeble, and pervaded with a good-natured indiffer- 
ence, or worse, an easy-going laziness, in grasp, statement 
and argument, cruel and hurtful, to a man whom he pro- 
foundly respected, and for whom he has expressed the 
greatest admiration. There is an unwritten history of 
statement and comment, by several members of the 
committee, bearing on this feature, cotemporaneous with 
the report, profitless to inscribe now. 

At the first opportuity after the report was made, Gen- 
eral Garfield addressed the House, as follows: 

I rise to a personal explanation. During the late investigation by 
the committee, of which the .o-entleman from Vermont (Mr. Poland) 
was the chairman, I pursued what seemed to be the plain path of duy, 
to keep silence, except when I 2i'as called upon to testify before the com- 
mittee. When testimony was given which appeared to be in conflict 

"Ames and James Brooks not included in the list referred to.. 



A CHAPTER OF SLANDERS. 233 

with mine, / uaitcd, expecting to be called again if anything was needed 
Jrom me in reference to tliese discrepancies. I was not recalled; and 
when the committee submitted their report to the house, a consider- 
able portion of the testimony relating to me had not been printed. 

In the discussion which followed here, I was prepared to submit some 
additional facts and considerations, in case my own conduct came up 
for consideration in the house; but the whole subject was concluded 
without any direct reference to myself, and since then the whole time of 
the house has been occupied with the public business. I now desire to 
make a single remark on this subject in the hearing of the house. 
Though the committee acquitted me of all charges of corruption in 
action or intent, yet there is in the report a summing up of the facts in 
relation to me which I respectfully protest is not warranted by the tes- 
timony. I say this with the utmost respect for the committee, and 
without intending any reflection upon them. 

I cannot now enter upon the discussion; but I propose, before long, 
to make a statement to the public, setting forth more fully the grounds 
of my dissent from the summing up to which I ha\e refeiTed. 1 will 
only say now that the testimony which I gave before the committee is a 
stateir.ent of the facts in the case as I have understood them from th 
beginning. More than three years ago, on at least two occasions, I 
stated the case to two personal friends substantially as I stated it be- 
fore the committee, and I here add that nothing in my conduct or con- 
versation has at any time been in conflict with my testimonv. For the 
present I desire only to place on record this declaration and notice. 

The purpose thus publicly declared he executed, as 
we have .seen, in the following May. 

Obviously, if there was fraud in the alleged purchase 
of the Credit Mobilier stock, it must be in the point 
that it was purchased, or the alleged dividend was re- 
ceived, with the knowledge of the fraudulent arrange- 
ment between the Union Pacific Company and the Credit 
Mobilier, to which the purchaser, a member of the house, 
would thereby become a party. There is no pretense that 



234 LIFE OF JAMES A. CtARFIELD. 

there is a shadow of evidence that Mr. Garfield had the 
sUghtest knowledge, or any hint to put him on his inquiry 
as to the transactions between the two companies ; Ames 
swore that he did not know of them. But the com- 
mittee did permit itself to say that he agreed to buy ten 
shares, but did not pay for them, that Ames held them 
for him, and out of the dividends he jxaid for the stock, 
and that the balance, three hundred and twenty-nine 
dollars, was paid to Garfield by Ames, /;/ a duck on the 
sargeant-at-arms of the house. 

Each of these statements General Garfield solemnly 
denied on his oath ; and it is now alleged that, though 
he was guiltless of corruption in the purchase itself, he 
was guilty of the gravest crime known to the law, in the 
denial of the innocent purchase itself Certainly this is 
the mest illogical of accusations. If General Garfield 
was innocent of wrong, why should he commit perjury 
to conceal it ? It is true, the committee appeared to 
disbelieve him ; what it did do was to disregard his case, 
slur it over, couple it with another man's, and disregard 
the evidence. Not only do they seem to have disbelieved 
him, but they disbelieved Oakes Ames also, who at first 
swore that Garfield was entirely innocent, and found 
facts without evidence. 

Not thus is this case to be dismissed. I am remitted 
to the dreary task of examining in detail the real and 
seeming proofs. The charge of perjury is to be proved 
by a weight of evidence eciual to that of two men. The 
evidence of one man is met and balanced by that of the 
accused, is the rule of law and logic. I do not place 



A CHAPTER OF SLANDERS. 235 

this case solely on the basis of legal evidence, which is 
but the mass of human experience formulated into prac- 
tical rules for convenience and use. Let all sources of 
information be employed, which i)ractical intelligence 
uses in dealing with common grave affairs. There really 
are but two witnesses, and a few side lights, which attend 
the transaction. 

Oakes Ames is the sole source of inculpatory evi- 
dence. His connection with the whole transaction at 
once compromises him so entirely, that it is a rule alike 
of experience and law, that full credit cannot be given 
him. He has knowledge, but his integrity is impaired. 
He who would entrap the people's rei:)resentatives by half 
truths, and whole suppressions, is thereby gravely dis- 
credited. 

Is it said that Ciarfield occupies the same position — is 
compromised and therefore discredited? That is the fact 
to be proved. Until his guilt- is established his credit is 
unimpaired. He is a witness entitled to full credit. 
Oakes Ames, the thus impeached witness, and sole 
source of criminative evidence, is further, and more 
gravely, compromised. The man who makes different 
staternents of the same matter, though one statement, is 
not on his oath, so far discredits himself, that his state- 
ment ceases to be a source of full proof 

In his letter to McComb of January 25, 186S, he says 
he had sold to Garfield, of Ohio, twenty shares of stock 
at two thousand dollars. He swore before the committee, 
that there were but ten shares at one thousand dollars. 
The first statement was in writing, when the supposed 



236 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

transaction was fresh, when he was under an obligation 
to be truthful and accurate; the second, four years 
later, on his oath. Both cannot be true. The man who 
made them, is not truthful. 

It is alike a rule of law and intelligence, that a man 
who deliberately swears that the fact to be proved 
does not exist, and then that the same fact does exist, 
thereby destroys himself as a source of information as to 
the existence of that fact. 

The facts to be established were, that this same witness 
sold to Garfield ten shares of Credit Mobilier stock, and 
paid him as a dividend on it, three hundred and twenty- 
nine dollars. 

On these points, I quote from the Poland Rep. at p. 
28, under date of December 28th: 

Q. In reference to Mr. Garfield, you say that you agreed to get ten 
shares for him, and to hold them till he could pay for them, and that he 
never did pay for them nor receive them ? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. He never paid any money on that stock nor received any money 
from it? — A. Not on account of it. 

Q. He received no dividends ? — A. No, sir; I think not. He says 
he did not. My own recollection is not very clear. 

Q. So that, as you understand, Mr. Garfield nex'er parted with any 
money, nor received any money, on that transaction? — A. No, sir; he 
had some money from me once, some three or four hundred dollars, 
and called it a loan. He says that that is all he ever received from me, 
and thaf he considered it a loan. He never took his stock, and never 
paid for it. 

Q. Did you understand it so? — .A. Yes ; I am willing to so under- 
.stand it. I do not recollect paying him any dividend, and have for- 
gotten that I paid him any money. 

The sum of this is, that he agreed to sell Garfield ten 



A CHAPTER OF SLANDERS. 237 

shares, but did not. Garfield did not pay for them, and 
never received from him, Ames, any dividend. 

And so, later, on the same day, from p. 40, in answer 
to Mr. McCrary who recalled his attention to it. 

Q. I do not understand distinct!)- your answer to Mr. Merrick's 
question as to how many members of congress received these dividends 
upon that stock, and wliat members did not receive it, among those 
you have mentioned. — A. I think that all who paid for their stock re- 
ceived their dividends up to the time this suit was commenced; that is 
my impression. 

Q. Who received the dividends? — A. Mr. Patterson, Mr. Bing- 
ham, James F. Wilson did, and I think Mr. Colfax received a part of 
them. I do not know whether he received them all or not. I think 
Mr. Scofield received a part of them. Messrs. Kelley and Garfield 
never paid for their stock, and never received their di\'idends. 

Surely this is plain and direct. 

I here interject a passage from the evidence of Mr. 
Durant from page 173, and then resume Mr. Ames. .It 
will be remembered that these three hundred and forty- 
seven shares carried to Washington stood on the Credit 
Mobilier books in the name of Oakes Ames as trustee. 
As to these I quote from Mr. Durant, on the fourteenth 
of January, speaking of this same stock: 

A. The stock that stands in the name of Mr. Ames, as trustee, I 
claim belongs to the company yet, and I have a summons in a suit in 
my pocket waiting to catch him in New York, to serve the papers. 

Thus threatened with another suit, to recover fram him 
this very stock, all of which he had received back in his 
own right before this date, and was thus perfecting his 
title to it, through the pretense of a sale, as trustee, and a 
re-purchase in his individual right, on the twentv-second of 
January he went again upon the stand — this time for him- 



238 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

self, SO far as Garfield is concerned, for it was only by a 
sale to him and a re-purchase that he could hold it. It io 
claimed that at this time he swore positively that he did 
sell Garfield the stock, and did pay him a dividend, in a 
check for three hundred and twenty-nine dollars. The 
payment of the dividend was the only proof of an actual 
sale. If he did so swear, in the face of his swearing 
above, with the exception of Judge Poland there is no 
human intelligence that will pretend to credit his state- 
ment, or call a fact proved because he swore to it. As a 
source of evidence he has ceased to exist. 

My reader now understands the character and quality 
of the sole witness by whom it is said General Garfield 
is proved to have ])urchased Credit Mobilier stock, re- 
ceived a dividend, and is convicted of perjury, in depos- 
ing that he did not. The whole of that evidence in the 
least criminative I now lay before him — premising that 
General Garfield appeared before the committee and 
gave his evidence on the fourteenth of January. 

(J. In regard to Mr. Garfield, state to the committee the details of 
the transactions between you and liim in reference to Credit Mobilier 
stock. — A. I got for Mr. Garfield ten shares of the Credit Mobilier 
stock, for which he paid par and interest. 

Q. When did you agree with him for that? — A. That agreement 
was in December, 1867, or January 1868; about that time; about the 
time I had these conversations with all of them. It was all about the 
same time. 

Q. State what grew out of it.— A. Mr. Garfield did not pay me 
anv money. I sold the bonds belonging to his one thousand dollars 
of stock at ninety-seven, making seven hundred and seventy-six dollars. 
In June I received a dividend in cash on his stock of si.x hundred dol- 
lars, which left a balance due him of three hundred and twenty-nine 



A CHAPTER OF SLANDHRS. 239 

dollars, which I paid him. That is all the transaction between us. I 
did not deliver him any stock before or since. That is the only trans- 
action, and the only thing. 

Q. The three hundred and twenty-nine dollars which you paid him 
was the surplus of earnings on the stock above the amount to he paid 
for it, par value ?— A. Yes, sir; he never had either his Credit Mobilier 
stock or Union Pacific Railroad stock. The only thing he realized on 
the transaction was tiie three hundred and twenty-nine dollars. 

tj. I see in this statement of the account with General Garfield, 
there is a charge of forty-seven dollars ; that is interest from the July 
previous, is it ? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. And the seven hundred and seventy-six dollars on'the credit 
side of the account is the eighty per cent, bond dividend sold at ninety- 
seven ? — A. Yes, sir. 

(^). And the six hundred dollars on the credit side is the money 
dividend ? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. And after you had received these two sums, tliev in the aggre- 
gate overpaid the price of stock and interest three hundred and twenty- 
nine dollars, which you paid him ? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. How was that paid ? — A. Paid in money, I belie\ e. 

CJ. Did you make a statement of this to Mr. Garfield? — A. I pre- 
sume so ; I think I did with all of them ; that is my impression. 

(J. When you paid him this three hundred and twenty-nine dollars, 
did you understand it was the balance of his dividend after paying for 
his stock ? — A. I supposed so ; I do not know what else he could 
suppose. 

(J. You did not deliver the certificate of stock to him ? — A. No, sir • 
he said nothing about that. 

(J. Why did he not receive his certificate ? — A. I do not know. 

CJ. Do you remember any conversation between you and him in the 
adjustment of these accounts? — A. 1 do not. 

Q. You understood that you were a holder of his ten sh ires ? A, 

Yes, sir. 

ij. Did he so understand it? — A. I presume so. It seems to have 
gone from his mind, however. 

IJ. Was this the only dealing you had with him in reference to anv 
slock? — A. I think so. 



240 LIFE OF TAMES A. GARFIELD. 

(J. Was it the only transaction of any kind? — A. Tlie only trans- 
action. 

u. Has that three hundred and twenty-nine dollars ever been paid 
to you •* — A. I have no recollection of it. 

(,). Have you any belief that it ever has ? — .A. No, sir. 

tj. Did YOU ever loan General Garfield three hundred dollars ? — A 
Not to my knowledge ; except that he calls this a loan. 

(J. Vou do not call it a loan ? — .\. I did not at the time. I am 
willing it should go to suit him. 

(J. What we want to get at is the e.xact truth. — A. I have told the 
truth in my statement. 

(J. When you paid him three hundred and twenty-nine dollars, did 
he understand that he borrowed that money from you ? — A. I do not 
suppose so. 

Q. Have you any belief now that he supposed ? — A. N'o : only 
from what he said the other day. I do not dispute anybody. 

i). We want your ju'gment of the transaction. — .\. My judgment 
of the transaction is just as I told you. There was but one thing 
about it. 

Q. That amount has never been repaid to you? You did not sup- 
pose that you had any right to it, or any claim to it?— A. Xo, sir. 

Q. You regarded that as money belonging to him after the stock 
was paid for? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. There were dividends of Union Pacific Railroad stock on these 
ten shares ? — A. Yes, sir. 

CJ. Did General Garfield ever receive these ? — A. Xo, sir ; never 
has received but three hundred and twenty-nine dollars. 

Q. And that he has received as his own money? — A. I suppose 
so; it did not belong to me. I should not have given it to him if it 
had not belonged to him. 

CJ, You did not understand it to belong to you as a loan ; you never 
called for it, and have never received it back ? — A. No, sir. 

Q. Has there been any conversation between you and him in refer- 
ence to the Pacific stock he was entitled to.' — A. No, sir. 

(J. Has he ever called for it ? — A. No, sir. ^ 

Q. Have you ever offered it to him ? — A. No, sir. 

Q. Has there been any conversation in relation to it ? — A. No, sir. 



A CHAPTER OF SLANDERS. 241 

Q. Has there ever been anything said between you and him about 
rescinding the purchase of the ten shares of Credit Mobiher stock? 
Has there anything been said to you of its being thrown up, or aban- 
doned, or surrendered ? — A. No, sir ; not until recently. 

Q. How recently? — A. Since this matter came up. 

Q. Since this investigation commenced? — A. Ves, sir. 

Q. Did you consider at the commencement of this investigation 
that you held these other dividends, which you say you did not pay to 
him, in his behalf? Did you regard yourself as custodian of these 
dividends for him ? — A. Yes, sir ; he paid for his stock and is entitled 
to his dividends. 

Q. Will the di\idends come to him at any time on his demand? — 
A. Yes, sir, as soon as this suit is settled. 

Q. You say that three hundred and twenty-nine dollars was paid to 
him; how was it paid? — A. I presume by a check on the sergeant-at- 
arms. I find there are some checks filed without any letters or initials 
indicating who they were for. 

The following memorandum referred to by witness as a statement of 
his account with Mr. Garfield, was placed in evidence: 

J. A. G. [Garfield]. Dr. 

1868. To ten shares stock Credit Mobilier of A $1,000 00 

Interest 47 00 

June 19. To cash 329 00 

$1,376 00 

Cr. 

1868. By dividend bonds. Union Pacific railroad, $1,000, 

at eighty per cent, less three per cent $776 00 

June 17. By dividend collected for your account 600 00 

$1,376 00 

Leaving these statements without further remark, save 
to note the corkscrew-y process of leading questions I 
quote Oakes Ames from page 353, under date of Janu- 
ary 29th. He had found a bunch of old checks in the 
office of the sergeant-at-arms, which Judge Poland is 
talking up with him in a luminous way: 
16 



242 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

Q. Here is another check upon the sergeant-at-arms of the same 
date, June 22, 1868: "Pay O. A. or bearer three hundred and twenty- 
nine dollars, and charge to my account. Oakes Ames. " That seems 
to have been paid to somebody and taken up by the sergeant-at-arms. 
These initial are your own? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Do you know who had the benefit of that cheek? — I cannot tell 
you. 

Q. Do you think you received the money on it yourself? — A. I have 
no idea. I may have drawn the money and handed it over to another 
person. It was paid on that transaction. It may have been paid to 
Mr. Garfield. There were several sums of that amount. 

Q. Have you any memory in reference to this check? — A. No, sir; 
I have no memory as to that particular check. I found these checks 
in the package which the sergeant-at-arms gave me, and I find them on 
the sergeant-at-arms' books. 

Q. You have some memory in regard to some of these men receiv- 
ing payment of their dividends? — A. They all received payments of 
their dividends. There is no question of that in my mind. There may 
be in the minds of others. 

Q. Is there any other gentleman here in congress who received three 
hundred and twenty-nine dollars dividend e.xcept those who have 
already been named by you? — A. I don't think of any other. 

Q. In regard to Mr. Garfield, do you know whether you gave him 
a check or paid him the money? — A. I think I did not pay him the 
money. He got it from the sergeant-at-arms upon a check. 

This is the check entire, placed by itself: 

"June 22, 1868. 
"PayO. A. or bearer three hundred and twenty-nine dollars, and 
charge to my account. Oakes Ames." 

From page 555 of this pitiful record, I quote this, 
and all there is on the dreary expenses bearing on this 
matter, still in the plastic hand of the amiable chairman. 

Q. You think the check in which you wrote nothing to indicate the 
payee must have been for Mr. Garfield?— A. Yes, sir, that is my judg- 
ment. 



A CHAPTER OF SLANDERS. 243 

No ! he did not think so — had not said he thought 
so. In the pitiful helplessness of his position, groping 
in darkness, he timidly ventured the suggestion, "It may 
have been paid to Mr. Garfield." Then, when the chair- 
man insisted that he thought so^ he helplessly assents. 
The stupidity of the chairman was of that dense quality 
appalling to the gods. He assumes that Garfield must 
have been paid by a check, and this was it, — notwithstand- 
ing Ames swore (page 25) that he thought he paid with 
money, — because this check had no possible mark or 
sign to show by whom, or for what, it was issued; and 
Ames assented. Here, then, in this aimless, nameless 
slip of paper resides the evidence which convicts Gen- 
eral Garfield of a purchase of stock, and of perjury to 
conceal the purchase. A word disuses of it. Turn 
back to Ames' account with Garfield, on page 241, to this 
item. "To cash [paid], $3 2^9. Against this payment 
stands the date, June 19, 186S. This check is dated 
June 2 2d, three days afterward. How could a check not 
drawn till the twenty-second of June pay a debt on the 
nineteenth of June? Had the dates coincided, or this 
check been before payment, some seeming warrant for the 
chairman's assertion might exist. The after date of the 
check is fatal to his case, and to him. 

It is to be borne in mind that General Garfield, having 
made his statement before the court, was then bearing 
the burden of the Republic's great appropriations 
through the house. The statement that he had counsel 
before the committee is untrue. Judge Black, when 
there, was of counsel for McComb. 



244 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

There was further so-called evidence from Oakes 
Ames. He several times early referred to a certain 
memorandum book, and finally produced extracts from 
it. He was at once required by the chairman to pro- 
duce it, which he did February nth. The ground on 
which the committee received it is not obvious. Bearing 
in mind that the Garfield account, page 241, dates the pay- 
ment of the three hundred and twenty-nine dollars June 
19, 1868, what corroboration does Mr. Ames receive 
from his tardy book? This is taken from page 450 of 
the report: 

1868. 

Saturday, January 2, 1869. 

H. L. Dawes 600 

Scofield 600 

Patterson ^ 1,800 

Painter 1,800 

Wilson 1, 200 

Colfax 1,200 

Bingham i, 200 

Allison '600 

Kelley 329 

Wilson 329 

Garfield 329 

Q. You put down in this list what was to be paid to these men; it 
is not an entry of the payment you had actually made?. — A. It is a 
list of payments to be made, and which were made in different ways, 
some in one way and some in another. 

The entry is in a book for 1868. The list is dated 
January 2, 1869, and contains the names of the men to 
whom payments of dividends were to be made. Among 
them is that of Garfield, who, if ever paid, was paid 
months before. 

Here is another of the entries from p. 453 Id.: 



A CHAPTER OF SLANDERS. 245 



Sunday, June 31. 

Checks on commerce, deposited with Sergeant-at-Arms $10,000 

P'd S. Colfax 1,200 

" James F. Wilson 329 

" H. L. Dawes 600 

" William B. Allison 60O 

" G. W. Scofield 600 

" J. W. Patterson 1,800 

" John A. Logan 329 

" James A. Garfield 329 

" William D. Kelley 329 

" Henry Wilson 1,200 

" John A. Bingham 1,200 

Q. This entry, "PaidS. Colfax one thousand two hundred dollars," 
is the amount which you paid by this check on the sergeant-at-arms? — 
A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Was this entry upon this page of these various names intended 
to show the amount you were to pay or that you had paid; was that 
made at this date? — A. I do not know; it was made about that time. 
I would not have written it on Sunday; it is not very likely. It was 
made on a blank page. It is simply a list of names. 

Q. Were these names put down after you had made the payments 
or before, do you think ? — A. Before, I think. 

Q. You think you made this list before the parties referred to had 
actually received their checks, or received the money? — A. Yes, sir; 
that was to show whdm I had to pay, and who were entitled to receive 
the sixty per cent, dividend. It shows whom I had to pay here in 
Washington 

Q. It says '-paid." — A. Yes, sir; well, I did pay it. 

Q. What I want to know is, whether the list was made out before or 
after payment? — A. About the same time, I suppose; probably before. . 

These are marked paid, and dated June 31st, and is 
left for its own comment. 

Here follows another from p. 459 : 

Q. Now turn to any entries you may have in reference to Mr. Gar- 
field. — A. Mr. Garfield's payments were just the same as Mr. Kelley's. 
Q. I find Mr. Kelley's name on the list of June dividend payments 



246 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

for three hundred and twenty-nine dollars. That I understand you to 
be the amount of the June dividend after paying the balance due on his 
stock? — A. Yes, sir; the general statement made up for Mr. Garfield 
is as follows : 

GARFIELD. 

10 shares Credit M $1,000 

7 nios. 10 days 43 3^ 

1.043 36 
80 per cl. bd. div., at 97 776 

267 36 

Int'st to June 20 3 ^4 

271 00 

1,000 C. M. 

1,000 U. P. 

Q. You received six hundred dollars cash dividend on his ten 
shares? — A. Yes, sir. ♦ 

Q. And, as you say, paid him three hundred and twenty-nine dol- 
lars, as the balance of the dividend due him? — A. I think I did. 

Q. This general statement is not crossed off? — A. No, sir. 

Q. In this list of names for the June dividend, Mr. Garfield's name 
is down for three hundred and twenty-nine dollars. — A. That would 
be the balance due. 

Q. The cross opposite his name indicates that the money was paid 
to him? — A. Yes, sir. 

Mr. Clark remarked that Mr. Ames was not certain whether this 
amount was paid Mr. Garfield by check or in currency. 

The Witness. If I drew the check I may have paid him off in cur- 
rency, as I find no check with initials corresponding to his. 

Q. We find three checks for the amount of three hundred and 
twenty-nine dollars each; one is in blank; there are no initials written 
in. There are, however, the same number of checks for that amount 
as are called for by the names on this list for that amount. — A. I am 
not sure how I paid Mr. Garfield; I paid him in some form. 

Q. This statement of Mr. Garfield's account is not crossed off, 
which indicates, does it, that the matter has never been settled or ad- 
justed? — A. No, sir; it never hai. 



A CHAPTER OF SLANDERS. 247 

Mr. Clark remarked that he supposed it was understood that no 
one of these gentlemen had ever seen the entries in this book. 

Q. Can you state whether you have any other entry in your book 
relating to Mr. Garfield? — .\. No, sir. 

From page 47 1 I quote the last of Mr. iVmes' state- 
ments as to the facts themselves, made as follows: 

Q. In testifying in Mr. Garfield's case you say you may have drawn 
the money on the check and paid him; Is not that answer equally ap- 
plicable to the case of Mr. Colfa.x? — A. No, sir. 

Q. Why not? — A. I put Mr. Colfax's initials in the check, while I 
put no initials into Mr. Garfield's check, and I may have drawn the 
money myself. 

Q. Do you say that if you put any initials before the words "or 
bearer" into a check, that is evidence that you gave him the check, and 
that he drew the money on it? — A. I am satisfied that I gave him 
(Colfax) the check any way, because it belonged to him. 

Q. Did not Mr. Garfield's check belong to him? — .-\. Mr. Garfield 
had not paid for his stock. He was entitled to three hundred and 
twenty-nine dollars balance; but Mr. Colfax had paid for his stock, and 
I had no ousiness with his one thousand, two hundred dollars. 

Q. Is your recollection in regard to this payment of Mr. Colfax any 
more clear than your recollections as to the payment to Mr. Garfield? 
— A. Yes, sir, I think it is. Do you doubt that I gave him (Colfax) 
the check ? 

Q. That is not a proper question for me to answer; if it were I should. 

As bearing on the unmarked check of June 22, 1868, 
the check of the report, Mr. Dillon, the cashier, said : 

Q. There is a check payable to O. A. or bearer; have you any 
recollection of that? — .\. That was paid to himself. 

Q. Have you any memory that it was, or do you judge of that by 
the form in which the check is drawn? — A. No; I have no distinct 
memory about it. I have no doubt myself that I paid that to Mr. Ames. 
— Poland Reports, page 4-jg. 

I observe of these statements — that so far from claim- 
ing that he had any, the least memory of the payment 



248 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

of a dividend to Mr. Garfield, Mr. Ames several times 
says that he had none. His first testimony directly con- 
tradicts what he subsequently testified. 

He is sustained by no witness. He is not corrobor- 
ated by any writing of his own. His first account is 
marked paid June 19, 1S6S. The sole check by which 
it could have been paid bears a later date. In his list 
of June 31st, it is marked as paid. He declares that 
though marked paid, this was a list of men to be paid, 
though the claim is that Garfield was paid before. And 
the list of January 2, 1S69, was also that of men then 
unpaid, of whom Garfield was one, and, finally, that the 
account never was settled. Thus these papers, so far 
from sustaining the witness, contradict him, and impeach 
each other. 

The strangest feature of the case is yet to be named. 
Ames sold to Garfield ten shares of stock, and held it 
for him as trustee; made one payment in June, 1868, 
and, though he continued to hold it, and collect the di- 
vidends, of course, from that day of payment to his ap- 
pearance before the committee— a period of five years — 
he never again so much as mentioned the subject to 
Garfield. He swore he did not. And, stranger yet, here 
was this young man, owner of this money-coining 
stock, impecunious, running about for money and 
never going to Ames for it on this stock, never 
to the present time calling him to account, oblivious 
of ownership, declaring he did not own it, and all 
the time the sky was serene, and Ames was collecting 
dividends as owner of the stock, and without a pretense 



A CHAPTER OF SLANDERS. 249 

that he had repurchased it. Owner cestui que trust and 
trustee never so conducted themselves toward the prop- 
erty. The parties never for an instant held this relation 
to this Credit Mobilier stock. To pretend they did is 
the feeblest of sham. 

It is remembered that Garfield authorized the state- 
ment in the Gazette of September 15th, and quietly 
awaited events. He was not called before the committee 
until the 14th of January. 

As preliminary, I quote a paragraph from his expose 
of May 8, 1873, page 8. After saying that Mr. Ames 
sought him, he continues: 

Soon after the investigation began, Mr. Ames asked me what I re- 
membered of our tal]< in 1867-8 in reference to the Credit Mobilier 
Company. I told him I could best answer his question by reading to 
him the statement I had already prepared to lay before the committee 
when I should be called. Accordingly, on the following day, I took 
my written statement to the capitol, and read it to him carefully, sen- 
tence by sentence, and asked him to point out anything which he might 
think incorrect. He made but two criticisms; one in regard to a date, 
and the other, that he thought it was the Credit Foncier, and not the 
Credit Mobilier, that Mr. Train asked me to subscribe to in 1866-7. 
When I read the paragraph in which I stated that I had once borrowed 
three hundred dollars of him, he remarked, "I believe I did let you 
have some money, but I liad forgotten it." He said nothing to indi- 
cate that he regarded me as having purchased the stock; and from 
that conversation I did not doubt that he regarded my statement sub- 
stantially correct. His first testimony, given a few days afterward, 
confirmed me in this opinion. 

I give his testimony entire. Poland's report, page 
128: 

Washington, D. C, January 14, 1873. 
J. A. Garfield, a member of the United States house of represen- 



250 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

tatives from the State of Ohio, having been duly sworn, made tne fol- 
lowing statement : 

The first I ever heard of the Credit Mobilier was some time in 1866 
or 1867 — I cannot fix the date — when George Francis Train called on 
me and said he was organizing a company to be known as the Credit 
Mobilier of America; to be formed on the model of the Credit Mobilier 
of France; that the object of the company was to purchase lands and 
build houses along the line of the Pacific railroad at points where cities 
and villages were likely to spring up; that he had no doubt money thus 
invested would double or treble itself each year; that subscriptions 
were limited to one thousand dollars each, and he wished me to sub- 
scribe. He showed me a long list of subscribers, among them Mr. 
Oakes Ames, to whom he referred me for further information concern- 
ing the enterprise. I answered that I had not the money to spare, and 
if I had I would not subscribe without knowing more about the pro- 
posed organization. Mr. Train left me, saying he would hold a place 
open for me, and hoped I would yet conclude to subscribe. The same 
dav I asked Mr. Ames what he thought of the enterprise. He expressed 
the opinion that the investment would be safe and profitable. 

I heard nothing further on the subject for a year or more, and it was 
almost forgotten, when some time, I should say, during the long ses- 
sion of 1868, Mr. Ames spoke of it again; said the company had or- 
ganized, was doing well, and he thought would soon pay large divi- 
dends. He said that some of the stock had been left or was to be left 
in his hands to sell, and I could take the amount which Mr. Train had 
offered me, by paying the one thousand dollars and the accrued inter- 
est. He said if I was not able to pay for it then, he would hold it for 
me till I could pay, or until some of the dividends were payable. I told 
him 1 would consider the matter; but would not agree to take any 
stock until I knew, from an e.xamination of the charter and the condi- 
tions of the subscription, the extent to which I would become pecuni- 
arily liable. He said he was not sure, but thought a stockholder would 
be liable only for the par value of his stock; that he had not the stock 
and papers with him, but would have them after a while. 

From the case, as presented, I probably should have taken the stock 
if I had been satisfied in legard to the extent of pecuniary liability. 
Thus the matter rested for some time, I think until the following year. 



A CHAPTER OF SLANDERS. 25 1 

During that inten-al I understood that there were dividends due 
amounting to nearly three times the par value of the stock. But in the 
meantime I had heard that the company was involved in some contro- 
versy with the Pacific railroad, and that Mr. Ames' right to sell the 
stock was denied. When I ne.xt saw Mr. Ames I told him I had con- 
cluded not to take the stock. There the matter ended so far as I was 
concerned, and I had no further knowledge of the company's opera- 
tions until the subject began to be discussed in the newspapers last fall. 

Nothing was ever said to me by Mr. Ames or Mr. Train to indicate 
or imply that the Credit Mobilier was or could be in any way connected 
with the legislation of congress for the Pacific railroad or for any other 
purpose. Mr. Ames never gave, nor offered to give, me any stock or 
other valuable thing as a gift. I once asked and obtained from him, 
and afterward repaid to him, a loan of three hundred dollars; that 
amount is the only valuable thing I ever received from or delivered to him. 

I never owned, received, or agreed to receive any stock of the Credit 
Mobilier or of the Union Pacific railroad, nor any dividend or profits 
arising from either of them. 

By the chairman : 

Question. Had this loan you speak of any connection in any way 
with your conversation in regard to the Credit Mobilier stock? — A. No 
connection in any way e.xcept in regard to the time of payment. Mr. 
Ames stated to me that if I concluded to subscribe for the Credit Mo- 
bilier stock, I could allow the loan to remain until the payment on that 
was adjusted. I never regarded it as connected in any other way with 
the stock enterprise. 

Q. Do you remember the time of that transaction? — A. I do not 
remember it precisely. I should think it was in the session of 1868. I 
had been to Europe the fall before, and was in debt, and borrowed 
several sums of money at different times and from different persons. 
This loan from Mr. Ames was not at his instance. I made the request 
myself. I think I had asked one or two persons before for the loan. 

Q. Have you any knowledge in reference to any dealing of Mr. 
Ames with any gentlemen in congress in reference to the stock of the 
Credit Mobilier?— A. No, sir; I have not. I had no knowledge that 
Mr. Ames had ever talked with anybody but myself. It was a subject 
I gave but little attention to; in fact, many of the details had almost 



252 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

passed out of my mind until they were called up in the late campaign. 

By Mr. Black: 

Q. Did you say you refused to take the stock simply because there 
was a lawsuit about it? — A. No; not exactly that. I do not remember 
any other reason which I gave to Mr. Ames than that I did not wish to 
take stock in anything that would involve controversy. I think I gave 
him no other reason than that. 

Q. When you ascertained the relation this company had with the 
Union Pacific railroad company, and whence its profits were to be de- 
rived, would you have considered that a sufficient reason for declining 
it irrespective of other considerations? — A. It would have been as the 
case was afterward stated. 

Q. At the time you talked with Mr. Ames, before you rejected the 
proposition, you did not know whence the profits of the company were 
to be derived? — A. I did not. I do not know that Mr. Ames withheld, 
intentionally, from me any information. I had derived my original 
knowledge of the organization of the company from Mr. Train. He 
made quite an elaborate statement of its purposes, and I proceeded in 
subsequent conversations upon the supposition that the organization 
was unchanged. I ought to say for myself, as well as for Mr. Ames, 
that he never said any word to me that indicated the least desire to in- 
fluence my legislative action in any way. If he had any such purpose, 
he certainly never said anything to me which would indicate it. 

Q. You know now, and have known for a long time, that Mr. Ames 
was deeply interested in the legislation on this subject? — A. I supposed 
that he was largely interested in the Union Pacific railroad. I have 
heard various statements to that effect. I cannot say I had any such 
information of my own knowledge. 

Q. You mean that he did not electioneer with you or solicit your 
vote ? — A. Certainly not. None of the conversations I ever had with 
him had any reference to such legislation. 

By Mr. Merrick: 

Q. Have you any knowledge of any other member of congress being 
concerned in the Credit Mobilier stock? — A. No, sir; I have not. 

Q. Or any stock in the Union Pacific railroad? — A. I have not. I 
can say to the committee that I never saw, I believe, in my life a certifi- 
cate of stock of the Union Pacific railroad company, and I never saw 



A CHAPTER OF SLANDERS. 253 

any certificate of stock of the Credit Mobilier, until Mr. Brooks exhib- 
ited one, a few days ago, in the house of representatives. 

Q. Were any dividends ever tendered to you on the stock of the 
Credit Mobilier upon the supposition that you were to be a subscriber? 
— .\. Xo, sir. 

Q. This loan of three hundred dollars you have repaid if I under- 
stood you correctly. — A. Yes, sir. 

By Mr. McCrary: 

Q. You never examined the charter of the Credit Mobilier to see 
what were its objects ?— A. Xo, sir; I never saw it. 

Q. If I understood you, you did not know that the Credit Mobilier 
had any connection with the Union Pacific railroad company? — A. I 
understood from the statement of Mr. Train that its objects were con- 
nected with the lands of the Union Pacific railroad company and the 
development of settlements along that road; but that it had any relation 
to the Union Pacific railroad, other than that, I did not know. I think 
I did hear also that the company was investing some of its earnings in 
the bonds of the road. 

Q. He stated it was for the purpose of purchasing land and build- 
ing houses?— A. That was the statement of Mr. Train. I think he 
said in that connection that he had already been doing something of 
that kind at Omaha, or was going to do it. 

Q. You did not know that the object was to build the Union Pacific 
railroad? — A. Xo, sir; I did not. 

This is the clear, distinct statement of a man giving a 
succinct account of a transaction in strict accord with all 
we have learned of the facts. jSlr. Ames' first testimony 
fully corroborates and sustains it in all details. 

Garfield received the first information of the real use 
made of the Credit Mobilier from Judge Black. On re- 
ceiving that he put an end to all negotiations with Ames. 

In corroboration of his evidence, and that this was al- 
ways his statement of the case, I produce Judge Black's 
statement bearing date before the report of the committee 



2 54 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

was made. It covers the whole case and should silence 
even malice. 

Philadelphia, February 15, 1873. 

My Dear Sir. From the beginning ojf the investigation concerning 
Mr. Ames' use of the Credit Mobilier, I believed that General Garfield 
was free from all guilty connection with that business. This opinion 
was founded not merely on my confidence in his integrity, but on some 
special knowledge of his case. I may have told you all about it in con- 
versation, but I desire now to repeat it by way of reminder. 

I assert unhesitatingly that, whatever General Garfield may have done 
or forborne to do, he acted in profound ignorance of the nature and 
character of the thing which Mr. Ames was proposing to sell. He had 
not the slightest suspicion that he was to be taken into a ring organized 
for the purpose of defrauding the public ; nor did he know that the 
stock was in any manner connected with anything which came, or could 
come, within the legislative jurisdiction of congress. The case against 
him lacks the scienter which alone constitutes guilt. 

In the winter of 1869-70, 1 told General Garfield of the fact that his 
name was on Ames' list; that Ames charged him with being one of his 
distributees; explained to him the character, origin, and objects of the 
Credit Mobilier; pointed out the connection it had with congressional 
legislation, and showed him how impossible it was for a member of con- 
gress to hold stock in it without bringing his private interests in conflict 
with his public duty. That all this was to him a perfectly new revela- 
tion I am as sure as I can be of such a fact, or of any fact which is capa- 
ble of being proved only by moral circumstances. He told me, then, 
the whole story of Train's offer to him and Ames' subsequent solicita- 
tion, and his own action in the premises, much as he details it to the 
committee. I do not undertake to reproduce the conversation, but the 
effect of it all was to convince me thoroughly that when he listened to 
Ames he was perfectly unconscious of anything evil. I watched care- 
fully every word that fell from him on this point, and did not regard his 
narrative of the transaction in other respects with much interest, because 
in my view everything else was insignificant. I did not care whether he 
had made a bargain technically binding or not; his integrity def>ended 
upon tlie question whether he acted with his eyes open. If he had 



I 



A CHAPTER OF SLANDERS. 255 

known the true character of the proposition made to him he would not 
have endured it, much less embraced it. 

Now, couple this with Mr. Ames' admission that he gave no expla- 
nation whatever of the matter to General Garfield; then reflect that not 
a particle of proof exists to show that he learned anything about it pre- 
vious to his conversation with me, and I think you will say that it is al- 
together unjust to put him on the list of those who knowingly and will- 
fully joined the fraudulent association in question. 

J. S. Black. 

Hon. J. G. Blaine, 

Speaker of the House of Representatives. 

Judge Black was not the attorney of Garfield, and not 
a political friend. He revealed to Garfield the facts of 
the relation of the Union Pacific company and the 
Credit Mobilier, when Garfield had no motive to conceal 
his own position. He also revealed to him the existence 
of Mr. Ames' list. On this information Garfiield acted. 

The question now under consideration is not whether 
Garfield is venal in the matter of the Credit Mobilier 
stock. We know he was not, but whether he was guilty 
of perjury in denying that charge. Did he state the facts 
as he understood, and stated them toothers at the time? 
These are important questions. On this point hear the 

following : 

Hiram, Ohio, February 18, 1S73. 

Dear Sir: It maybe relevant to the question at issue between your- 
self and Mr. Oakes Ames, in the Credit Mobilier investigation, for me 
to state that three or four years ago, in a private conversation, you 
made a statement to me involving the substance of your testimony be- 
fore the Poland committee, as published in the newspapers. The 
material points of your statement were. these: 

That you had been spoken to by George Francis Train, who offered 
you some shares of Credit Mobilier stock; that you told him that you 
had no money to invest in stocks; that subsequently you had a conver- 



256 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

sation in relation to tlie matter with Mr. Ames ; that Mr. Ames offered 
to carry the stock for you until you could pay for it, if you cared to 
buy it ; and that you had told him in that case perhaps you would take 
it, but would not agree to do so until you had inquired more fully into 
the matter. Such an arrangement as this was made, Ames agreeing to 
carrry the stock until you should decide. In this way the matter stood, 
as I understood it, at the time of our conversation. My understanding 
was distinct that you had not accepted Mr. Ames' proposition, but that 
the shares were still held at your option. 

You stated, further, that the company was to operate in real prop- 
erty along the line of the Pacific road. Perhaps I should add that this 
conversation, which I have always remembered very distinctly, took 
place here in Hiram. I have remembered the conversation the more 
distinctly from the circumstances that gave rise to it. Having been 
intimately acquainted with you for twelve or fifteen years, and having 
had a considerable knowledge of your pecuniary affairs, I asked you 
how you were getting on, and especially whether you were managmg to 
reduce your debts. In reply you gave me a detailed statement of your 
affairs, and concluded by saying you had had some stock offered you, 
which, if you bought it, would probably make you some money. You 
then proceeded to state the case, as I have stated it above. 

I cannot fix the time of this conversation more definitely than to say 
that it was certainly three, and probably four, years ago. 

B. A. Hinsdale, 
Ho.N. J. A. Garfield, President of Hiram College. 

Washington, D. C. 

That he had not closed with the offer of Ames in the 
spring of 1868, is clear, from the following statement. 
He was then deliberating: 

Cleveland, Ohio, May, i 1873. 

Dear Gener.\l : I send you the facts concerning a conversation 
which I had with you, (I think in the spring of 1868,) when I was stop- 
ing in Washington for some days, as your guest, during the trial of 
the impeachment of President Johnson. While there, you told me 
that Mr. Ames had offered you a chance to invest a small amount in a 
company that was to operate in lands and buildings along the Pacific 



A CHAPTER OF SLANDERS. 257 

railroad, which he (Ames) said would be a good thing. You asked me 
what I thought of it as a business proposition; that you had not deter- 
mined what you would do about it, and suggested to me to talk with 
Ames, and form my own judgment, and if I thought well enough of it, 
to advance the money and buy the stock on joint account with you, 
and let you pay me interest on the one-half, I could do so. But I did 
not think well of the proposition as a business enterprise, and did not 
talk with Ames on the subject. 

After this talk, having at first told you that I would give the subject 
thought, and perhaps talk with Ames, I told you one evening that I 
did not think well of the proposition, and had not spoken to Ames on 
the subject. Yours, truly, 

J. P. ROBISON. 

Hon. J. A. Garfield. 

Both of these gentlemen are widely known and es- 
teemed in their own State. 

This is all that belongs to the case. During the inves- 
tigation there was an interview between the parties, of 
which each gave an account. Neither throws any light 
on the case. 

Garfield expected to be called before the committee, 
to reply to the new and inexplicable statements of Mr. 
Ames. He was not. The conclusion must be that Gen- 
eral Garfield never purchased Credit Mobilier stock of 
Oakes Ames; that he never received money from him 
as dividends on stock; that all his own statements in 
the case are in strict accord with truth. 



,^ CHAPTER II. 

SALARY GRAB. 

Involves only a Question of Judgment. — Resolution requiring Gar- 
field's Resignation. — Popular Phrenzy. — Garfield as Chairman of the 
Committee of Appropriations has Charge of the Bill. — Its Magnitude 
and Importance. — Scheme is an Amendment to it. — Votes Eighteen 
Times Against It. — His own Statement. — Meets all his Accusers. 

While our young man was taking his first practical les- 
son in the fragile tenure of human reputation, and the 
air was thick with the vapor and odors of the Credit 
Mobilier, a convention of his constituents adopted the 
following resolution : 

"Resolved, That James A. Garfield, in voting for the retroactive sal- 
ary bill, has forfeited the confidence of his constituents, and therefore 
we, the representatives of the Republican party of Trumbull county, 
in convention assembled, ask him to resign forthwith his office as our 
representative in congress." 

At this distance of time, during which so many events 
have occurred, it is difficult to recall the force and vol- 
ume of the indignation, the fierce phrenzy which at once 
seized upon the entire Republic upon the passage of the 
legislative appropriation bill of March 3, 1873, which 
carried the obnoxious three-line amendment, advancing 
the pay of the legislators. The fury of the tempest will 
be appreciated by the resolution above, of men who had 
known and trusted Garfield long. He had opposed the 
258 



SALARY GRAB. 259 

project in all forms, everywhere, by vote, speech, and 
personal influence; had only voted for a bill of the 
greatest importance, whose folds sheltered it after a des- 
perate effort to dislodge it; when it became a law he 
would not be bound by it, never held in his palm the 
fruit of it for an instant, was the first to order it back to 
the unappropriated money in the treasury. The public 
mind was suffering from a brain plague. No sinister 
motive can be attributed in this case. At the most it was 
a grave misjudgment upon a matter of mixed good and 
evil. 

Hear him as to his position: 

I had special charge of the legislative appropriation bill, upon the 
preparation of which my committee had spent nearly two weeks of labor 
before the meeting of congress. It was the most important of the 
twelve annual bills. Its provisions reached every part of the machin- 
ery of the government in all the States and Territories of the Union. 
The amount appropriated by it was one-seventli of the total annual ex- 
penditures of the government, exclusive of the interest on the public 
debt. It contained all the appropriations required by law for the legis- 
lative department of the government; for the public printing and bind- 
ing; for the President and the officers and employes at the executive 
mansion; for the seven executive departments at Washington, and all 
their bureaus and subdivisions; for the sub-treasuries and public depos- 
itaries in fourteen cities of the Union; for all the officers and agents 
employed in the assessment and collection of the internal revenue; for 
the governments of the nine Territories and of the District of Columbia; 
for the mints and the assay offices; for the land offices and the surveys 
of public lands; and for all the courts, judges, district attorneys, and 
marshals of the United States. Besides this, during its progress 
through the two houses, many provisions had been added to the bill 
which were considered of vital importance to the public interests. A 
section had been added in the senate to force the Pacific railroad 
companies to pay the arrears of interest on the bonds loaned to 



26o LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

them by the United States, and to commence refunding the principal. 

I also quote his statement of the means by which this 
feature was attached to the bill : 

Before it was finally adopted there were eighteen different votes taken 
in the house and the committee of the whole, on its merits and its 
management. On each and all of these 1 voted adversely to the 
amendment. Si.x years ago, when the salaries of congressmen were 
raised, and the pay was made to date back si.xteen months, I had 
voted against the increase ; and now, bearing more responsibility for 
the appropriations than ever before, I pursued the same course. No 
act of mine during this struggle, can be tortured into a willingness to 
allow this amendment to be fastened to the bill. But all opposition 
was overborne by majorities ranging from three to fifty-three, and the 
bill with this amendment added, was sent to the senate Saturday 
evening, the first of March. If the senate had struck out the amend- 
ment, they could have compelled the house to abandon it or take the 
responsibility of losing the bill. But the senate refused, by a vote of 
nearly two to one, to strike out the salary clause, or any part of it ; 
and many senators insisted that with the abolition of mileage and 
other allowances, si.x thousand five hundred dollars was no real in- 
crease, and that the rate should be greater. The bill then went to a 
conference committee, with si.xty-five unadjusted amendments pending 
between the two houses. 

On that committee he was the solitary member op- 
posed to this feature. These are his views of some of 
the evils of the bill: 

There were grave objections to the defeat of the appropriation bill. 
Everybody knew that its failure would render an extra session of the 
new congress inevitable. It is easy to say now that this would have 
been better than to allow the passage of the salary clause. Present 
evils always seem greater than those that never come. The opinion 
was almost universal that an extra session would be a serious evil in 
many ways, and especially to the treasury. Its cost directly and indi- 
rectlv, would far exceed the amount appropriated for retroactive sal- 



SALARY GRAB. 26 1 

aries. An unusual amount of dangerous legislation was pressing upon 
congress for action. 

In his speech at Warren, 1874, already referred to, he 
thus refers to his final action. What can be more satis- 
factory ? 

But by a very large vote in tlie house, and a still larger vote in the 
senate, the salary clause was put upon the bill. I was captain of the 
ship, and this objectionable freight had been put upon my deck. I had 
tried to keep it off. What should I do? Bum the ship? Sink her? 
or, having washed my hands of the responsibility for that part of her 
cargo I had tried to keep off, navigate her into port, and let those who 
had put this freight on be responsible for it ? Using that figure, that 
was the course I thought it my duty to adopt. Now, on that matter I 
might have made an error of judgment. I believed then and now that 
if it had been in my power to kill this bill, and had thus brought on an 
extra session ; I believe to-day, I say, had I been able to do that, I 
should have been the worst blamed man in the United States. 

The government has since submitted to graver wrongs 
than a dozen salary grabs, to avoid the evil and peril of 
an extra session of congress. 

This charge against Garfield has long ceased to have 
vitality. It never had any right to live, and I close this 
brief reference to it by one of the concluding passages 
of his admirable address referred to: 

If the delegates beUeve that the retroactive clause is so infamous 
that I ought to resign for voting for the appropriation bill to which it 
was attached, will they follow out their logic and insist that the Presi- 
dent ought to resign for signing it? My vote did not make it a law. 
His signature did. I do not consent to the logic that leads to such a 
conclusion. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE DE GOLYER CONTRACT. 

Case Stated. — Sketch of the District of Columbia Government.— Ca»- 
gress Never Appropriates for Street Improvements.— Case before the 
Joint Committee of Congress. — Glover and His Committee. — His 
Labors. — His Garbage Sealed with Seven Seals. — Case Re-opened 
by Chicago Times. — The Spry Nickerson. — Garfield Exposes Him. 
— Garfield's Statement on Oath. — Garfield's Chances for Thrift. — 
Still Poor. 

There has been a certain flavor following the name of 
DeGolyer, which much effort has attempted to connect 
with that of General Garfield. Perhaps its intangibility, 
its formlessness, has given it a certain lightness favorable 
to its life. 

If it could be fairly arrested and analyzed, if there was 
venality or corruption in the conduct of General Gar- 
field, that could be made to appear. Something may be 
done, however, to show that nothing sinister could have 
existed in his relations to the case. 

In February, 187 1, congress created a government for 
the District of Columbia, consisting of a legislature, gov- 
ernor, and the usual machinery of a State government. 
It also provided -for a board of public works, and cast 
upon it full power over the streets and avenues of the 
District. Full power was vested in the legislature, 
which alone could appropriate money for improvements, 



THE DE GOLYER CONTRACT. 263 

with a limitation on the power to create a debt. The 
board of public works could make no contract until the 
legislature had made an appropriation to cover the out- 
lay. During the existence of this government, which 
continued until June 20, 1874, congress did not attempt 
to exercise the slightest control over the streets or ave- 
nues, or other objects of improvement, nor did it make 
an appropriation for streets or avenues, nor was it asked 
to ; nor during that time did it pay for any improvement, 
except as the United States was a property owner. Nor 
did or could any contract, or proposed contract, in any 
way depend upon an appropriation by congress, nor did 
anybody who knew anything of the subject suppose con- 
tracts did so depend. Who should so state was either 
ignorant of the subject or base in his purpose. 

The board entered on its duties in April, 187 1, and 
the first session of the legislature placed at its disposal 
four million five hundred thousand dollars by appropria- 
tion ; one-third of the cost of improvements was a servi- 
tude on property, and this sum was to pay the two- 
thirds, chargeable to the District treasury. The board 
at once, with wonderful vigor, entered upon hundreds 
of miles of streets, and commenced their improvement. 
Pennsylvania avenue was the only paved street in Wash- 
ington, at that time. Various plans for paving, and a 
vast variety of pavements, and paving companies, com- 
peted for preference. On consultation with the United 
States engineers and architects, the board adopted a 
rate of payment for pavements by the square yard, and 
a form, with well-devised stipulations, terms and condi- 



264 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

tions, for its contracts. There may have been some ir- 
regularities in making these contracts, and possibly 
favoritism in awarding them. The trouble was in decid- 
ing among the many, which was the best pavement, and 
the best party to execute the work. In its eagerness to 
push the work, scores of contractors went to work, and 
had their contracts filled up and executed long afterward. 
The DeGolyer contract was awarded in June, 1872, 
when vast quantities of work were being undertaken. 
There was always a vigilant and relentless opposition, in 
the District, to the board of public works, and late in 
1873, congress ordered an investigation into all its trans- 
actions. It was out of this inquiry, before the joint 
committee, that the famous safe -burglary case arose. All 
of the board's contracts were overhauled, and the details 
of their lettings and execution passed upon — among them, 
the DeGolyer. That made no figure there, nor was 
there any importance attached to it. General Garfield 
was not then assailed, nor did he appear before the com- 
mittee. Senator Thurman and Mr. Jewett, of Ohio, 
were both on the committee, both his personal friends, 
and either of them would have had him called, had there 
been the least thing reflecting upon him. Mr. Parsons, 
DeGolyer's lawyer, was called, and made an explicit 
statement of the whole matter ; so also one Benjamin R. 
Nickerson was called, who swore he knew nothing of 
the transaction, nor of the men or means employed to 
secure the contract. Garfield's connection with the 
transaction transpired to the public. It was seized upon 
in his district as we have seen. One of his constituents 



THE DE GOLYER CONTRACT. 265 

called out the following letter from J. M. Wilson, of In- 
diana, chaiiman of the house part of the committee, and 
perhaps the most efficient man of the very able joint 
committee. 

CONNERSVILLE, INDIANA, AugUSt I, 1874. 

Hon. George W. Steele — Dear Sir: To the request for informa- 
tion as to whether or not the action of General Garfield, in connection 
with the affairs of the District of Columbia, was the subject of con- 
demnation by the committee that recently had those affairs under con- 
sideration, I answer that it was not; nor was there, in my opinion, any 
evidence that would have warranted any unfavorable criticism upon his 
conduct. 

The facts disclosed by the evidence, so far as he is concerned, are 
briefly these: 

The board of public works was considering the question as to the 
kind of pavements that should be laid. There was a contest as to the 
respective merits of various wooden pavements. Mr. Parsons repre- 
sented, as attorney, the DeGolyer & McClelland patent, and being 
called away from Washington about the time the hearing was to be 
had before the board of public works on this subject, procured General 
Garfield to appear before the board in his stead, and argue the merits 
of this patent. This he did, and this was the whole of his connection 
in the matter. It was not a question as to the kind of contract that 
should be made, but as to whether this particular kind of pavement 
should be laid. The criticism of the committee was not upon the pave- 
ment in favor of which General Garfield argued, but was upon the con- 
tract made with reference to it ; and there was no evidence which would 
warrant the conclusion that he had anything to do with the latter. 
• Very respectfully, etc., J. M. WiLSON. 

This was one of the charges which he met at Warren, 
already referred to. His course was discussed in the 
circles of the capital. No one spoke of corruption on 
his part. Everybody there knew that the appropriation 
referred to, as a condition of increasing the work, was an 



266 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

appropriation which could only be made by the District 
legislature. The only question was, whether he, with his 
eminence, should have permitted himself to appear be- 
fore such a body as the board of public works. 

The matter passed to merited oblivion, until one of 
those popular mishaps, which discredit representative in- 
stitutions, threw from the depths one Glover (a name the 
world would let die— wiUingly) of Missouri, into the house 
of representatives. Emulous of the example of his 
Democratic peers, to inquire into the doings of their 
neighbors, while they were away, (he had a turn for that,) 
he managed to organize a small inquisitorial office of 
his own, nominally a committee to investigate the "Wash- 
ington Real Estate Pool," a very baffling body indeed. 
After an ineffective tussle with that mythical shadow, 
Glover turned his attention to miscellaneous scandal, 
sparing no body or thing, friends — if such he ever had — 
or enemies. Some of his mendacious assaults were 
upon the good men of his own party. He had a short- 
hand reporter, and all through the winter of 1876-7, he 
was raking among the scabs of the body politic and 
social. He had a pleasant way, when he fancied he had 
discovered a pustule, or pimple, of having his first im- 
pressions written vividly up and given to the press. In 
this way he contributed many lively tales to the current 
gossip of the capital. From a scandal himself he be- 
came a nuisance, and his political associates were com- 
pelled to abate him. He never was permitted to make 
any report, could never get his rakings printed. Finally, 
as was said, the committee upon printing gathered his 



THE DE GOLYER CONTRACT. 267 

garbage, placed it all in a box, and sealed it with their 
"seven seals," each having one of the names of the 
committee written upon it. 

Among the things to which he was attracted, was the 
DeGolyer contract. He took it up as an original case. 
He called Governor Shepherd before him several times, 
without effect. Finally the versatile Nickerson came to 
his aid — Nickerson who had sworn before the joint com- 
mittee that he knew nothing of the transaction; that 
neither Brown, nor Chittenden, nor Parsons, nor any one 
else — the parties who were in some way connected with 
the DeGolyer contract — had ever told him anything 
about it. They avoided telling him. Now he declared 
that they severally told him all about it, and that he had 
a great deal of original knowledge of his own upon the 
case, which he detailed in a spry way to the refreshed 
Glover — all going by innuendo and indirection to point 
to Garfield as the great power to be secured in the case 
by the DeGolyer party — the man who held the national 
purse strings, and could secure large appropriations. At 
this point Garfield himself appeared, and read to the 
committee in the face of the undisturbed Nickerson, his 
former testimony, in flat contradiction of each point just 
deposed to by him. He went further, was sv;orn, and 
for the first time gave his account of his connection with 
the case, on oath, which was the end of it. Glover did 
not furnish the world with any account of his findings, 
and the world never knew that he was looking for any- 
thing in this gutter. It was sealed up to silence and ob- 
livion, until a correspondent of the Chicago Times dis- 



268 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

turbed tne remains of Glover, violated the seals of the 
committee, and gave it, with comments of his own, to 
that sheet. 

Nickerson was recalled on the first of March, by Glo- 
ver, and General Garfield was present with the report of 
the joint committee. I quote fiom the Times version. 
He asked Nickerson — 

Are you the B. R. Nickerson who testified before the joint committee 
of which Senator Allison was chairman in 1874? — A. I am. 

Q. From page 1270 of the proceedings of that committee I read a 
portion of your e.xamination as follows: "Q. Did you know Mr. Brown 
was employed by Mr. Chittenden? — A. No, sir; Mr. Brown avoided 
every reference to anything of the kind; will say he avoided it. I mean 
to say he did not communicate anything" — was that statement tnie? — A. 
yes, sir. 

Q. That statement was subsequent to your knowledge at the time 
of the transaction? — -A. Yes, sir. 

Q. In your testimony here the other day were you asked, "Do you 
^Know whether Chittenden employed Brown and paid him ten thousand 
dollars," and did you answer "I know that he did pay Mr. Brovni two 
thousand dollars; so Brown said and so he said?" — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Which of those two statenients:is true? — A. They are both true. 

Mr. Garfield, resuming the joint committee report: 

Now I will proceed to another point. I read from his (Nickerson's) e.x- 
amination before the joint committee, volume three, page 1270, as fol- 
lows: "Q. And you had frequent talks with Mr. Chittenden on the 
subject? — A. Very frequently. Q. Did you see what he was doing? 
— A. Yes, sir. Q. Did he ever tell you? — A. He told me he thought 
they were getting along very fine, and that he was assured. I am now 
speaking up to the time of Mr. Huntington's death. I am speaking of 
the time that elapsed after the death of Mr. Huntington, subsequent to 
that time. He assured me every time the question was up that he had 
secured the proper arrangements for carrying out substantially what 
had been secured with Mr. Huntington. He stated that Mr. Hunting- 



THE DE GOLYER CONTRACT. 269 

ton had secured a promise and the assurance that the contract should 
be awarded, and that Mr. Huntington had secured it, and would have 
obtained it in a few days subsequent to his death. His death cut it off, 
and he has secured the services of other parties. My idea was that in 
the same line, and the same men Mr. Huntington had been associated 
with, had been substantially continued, and the arrangements were ab- 
solutely to be carried out. Q. Who were these men? — A. Mr. Chit- 
tenden never informed me; whatever he knew definitely he cautiously 
concealed. Q. Had you any idea who these men were? — A. Well, 
he informed me — yes, sir; I had an idea who they were. My idea was 
that Governor Cooke was the main man that Mr. Chittenden assumed 
to me to be relying upon, and I will tell you the reason I say that." 

And SO Governor Cooke was the niighty, mysterious 
man, longed for, sighed for, in 1872, before Glover's 
time, not Garfield. Mr. Garfield resumes, commenting 
and reading from the report: 

There is a long cross-examination here to elicit from this witness the 
names of any other parties, and four pages further on the chairman says 
to him: " Now just give the names," to which the witness replied: " I 
told you two or three times that no names were given." A member of 
the committee then asked him this question: "You were asked by "Mr. 
Wilson what Mr. Page told you the names were; answer that ques- 
tion;" and he replied: "I stated distinctly that Mr. Page cautiously 
and purposely avoided telling me." Q. He did not tell you the names? 
A. "Xo, sir." Repeatedly — seven or eight times, Ishouldsay — the wit- 
ness here declared that Chittenden gave him no names after the death 
of Huntington, and that he did not know the names of the parties. 
Now, I ask him, were those statements true? A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Then what have you to say as to the truth of this statement 
made here the other day : " I know all about the matter in all its phases 
through Chittenden and Parsons at the time?" A. That is true, too. 

Here the witness goes back to Brown, who had avoid- 
ed him. 

By Mr. Garfield: Q. When did you learn those names? A. I 
learned them when Chittenden was called upon the stand, and I learned 



270 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

them through Brown previously, and through DeGolyer and McClel- 
land. 

Q. When did you learn them from Brown? A. Directly after the 
contract was awarded. 

Q. Then you knew from Brown before you testified, the names that 
you now refer to? A. No, sir; I don't say that either. If you will 
understand what I do say you will get along better — you will get the 
truth and that is all you will get. 

Mr. Garfield — It is very difficult to get that in view of these conflict- 
ing statements. 

The Witness — There are no conflicting statements there. I don't 
want to be badgered. If you will ask me proper questions I will an- 
swer them distinctly if I can. 

Q. When did you learn from Brown the names oT these people? 
A. I never said I learned from Brown the names of the people. I 
learned from Brown that he was employed, and I learned from him, 
furthermore, that he had received a consideration, or was to receive a 
consideration. 

Q. When did you learn that from Brown? A. Directly thereafter. 

General Garfield pursued the agile witness, with many 
further contradictions. 

Here follows Mr. Garfield's testimony upon the mat- 
ter, taken from the same. Times, as follows: 

Now the whole story is plainly and briefly told. A day or two be- 
fore the adjournment of the congress which adjourned in the latter 
part of May or the first part of June, 1872, Richard C. Parsons, who 
was a practicing lawyer in Cleveland, but was then the marshal of the 
supreme court, and an old acquaintance of mine, came to my house 
and said that he w-as called away summarily by important business ; 
that he was retained in a case on which he had spent a great deal of 
time, and that there was but one thing to be done, to make brief of 
the relative merits of a large number of wooden pavements ; that the 
board of public works had agreed that they would put down a certain 
amount of wooden pavement in the city, a certain amount of concrete, 
and a certain amount of other kinds of pavement ; that they had fixed 
jhe price at which they would put down each of the different kinds, 



THE DE GOLVER CONTRACT. 27 I 

and that the only thing remaining was to determine which was the best 
pavement of each of these several kinds. He said he should lose his 
fee unless the brief on the merits of these pavements was made, and 
that he was suddenly and necessarily called away home ; and he asked 
me to prepare the brief. He brought his papers to my house and mod- 
els of the pavement. I told him I could not look at the case until the 
end of the session. When congress adjourned I sat down to the case, 
in the most open manner, as I would prepare a brief for the supreme 
court, and worked upon this matter. There were perhaps forty kinds 
of wood pavement, and several chemical analyses of the ingredients of 
the different pavements ; I went over the whole ground carefully and 
thoroughly, and prepared a brief on the relative claims of these pave- 
ments for the consideration of the board. That was all I did. I had 
nothing to do with the terms of the contract , I knew nothing of its 
conditions, and I never had a word to say about the price of the pave- 
ment. I knew nothing about it ; I simply made a brief upon the rela- 
tive merits of the various patent pavements ; and it no more occurred 
to me that the thing I was doing had relation to a ring, or to a body 
of men connected with any scheme, or in any way connected with 
congress, or related in any way to any of my duties in connection 
with the committee on appropriations, than it occurred to me that it 
was interfering with your personal rights as a citizen. I prepared a 
brief and went home. Mr. Parsons subsequently sent me a portion of 
his own fee. 

A year later, when the affairs of the District of Columbia came to be 
overhauled, congress became satisfied that the government of the Dis- 
trict had better be abolished, and this whole matter was verj' thoroughly 
investigated by a committee of the two houses. They went into the 
question of the merits of this pavement, some claiming that it was bad, 
and some claiming that the government had paid too much for it. 
Mr. Chittenden was called as a witness. I ought to say here that I 
never saw Mr. Chittenden until about the time I made the brief; I 
did not and do not know De Golyer and McClelland ; I would not 
know them on the street ; I am not aware that I ever saw Mr. Nicker- 
son before; and if anybody in this business had any scheme relating to 
me, it was never mentioned to me in the remotest way. It never was 
suggested to me that this matter could relate to my duties as a member 



2y2 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD; 

of congress in any way whatever. All that I did was done openly. 
Everybody who called on me could have seen what I was doing, and if 
there was any intention or purpose on the part of anybody to connect 
me in any way with any ring or any dishonorable scheme, it was sedu- 
lously concealed from me. As I have said, three years ago a joint 
committee of the two houses investigated this matter thoroughly. Mr. 
Parsons was summoned, was examined, and cross-examined; Mr. Chit- 
tenden was examined; Mr. Nickerson was examined. When I heard 
that my name was being used in the matter, I went to the chairmen on 
both sides— for it was a joint committee. Senator Thurman, of my 
own State, was on the committee; Mr. Jewett, now president of the 
Erie railway, was on the committee. I said to the chairmen that, if 
there was anything in connection with the case which reflected upon 
me, and that they thought I ought to answer, I would be obliged to 
them if they would inform me. The chairman on the part of the 
house, Mr. Wilson, said that he had looked the matter all over, and 
that what I had done was perfectly proper; but, if anything should 
occur to make any explanation necessary, I should appear before the 
committee; he would send me word. He never did send for me. 

I want to say this, further, that if anybody in the world holds that 
my fee in connection with this pavement, even by suggestion or impli- 
cation, had any relation whatever to any appropriation by congress for 
anything connected with this District, or with anything else, it is due to 
me, it IS due to this committee, and it is due to congress, that that per- 
son be summoned. If there be a man on this earth who makes such a 
charge, that man is the most infamous perjurer that lives, and I shall 
be glad to confront him anywhere in this world. I am quite sure this 
committee will not allow hearsay and contradictory testimony to raise a 
presumption against me. Now, I will say very frankly to the commit- 
tee that, if I had known or imagined that there was an intent such as 
this witness insinuates, on the part of anybody, that my employment by 
a brother lawyer to prepare a brief on a perfectly legitimate question— a 
question of the relative merits of certain lawful patents — had any con- 
nection whatever, or any supposed connection in the mind of any man, 
with any public duties, I certainly would have taken no such engage- 
ment. I would have been a weak and very foolish man to have done 
so, and I trust that gentlemen who know me will believe that I would at 



THE DEGOLYER CONTRACT. 273 

least have had too much respect for my own ambition to have done such 
a thing. 

By the Chairman: Q. What was the amount that Mr. Parsons did 
pay you of his fee? — A. Five thousand dollars. I do not think he men- 
tioned any sum at the time he asked me to make the argument. He 
said that he was to receive a large fee, and he would share it with me. I 
am not sure that he then mentioned the amount, or what he would pay 
me, but he said that the fee was a large one, and that there was a large 
amount involved. When I had made the argument I went home to 
Ohio, and some time in the month of July, I think, or perhaps a month 
afterward, Mr. Parsons deposited in bank to my credit five thousand 
dollars. 

By Mr. Culbertson: Q. Who paid those fees?— A. I do not know. 
I never knew anything about that at all. Mr. Parsons engaged me. No- 
body else spoke to me about it. The only relation I had to it at all was 
with him. Mr. Parsons' testimony on the subject is very full, and is 
true, as I remember it. 

.\ CONTINGENT FEE. 

By the Chairman: Q. Did Mr. Parsons say to you that his fee or 
yours would be contingent on the award of a contract for two hundred 
thousand square yards of pavement? — A. Oh, no, sir. I do not think 
he said that. He said: "I am in danger of losing an important fee 
unless I make this argument, and I cannot do it; I must go away, and 
I will pay you a share of what I get if you will make the brief. " I don't 
remember that he said whether it was contingent or absolute. I simply 
acted upon his request. 

Q. Your brief was made and filed? — A. Certainly. I labored over 
the case a good many days. I remember among other papers which I 
examined were some pamphlets giving an account of the working of this 
pavement in California, and I think, in Chicago. There were two or 
three chemical analyses of the materials used. I had to examine, I think, 
nearly forty of the different patents. ' The understanding was that the 
merits of the different competing pavements were to be laid before the 
board, in order that they might determine their relative merits. I do not 
think I knew anything about the price that was to be paid per square 
yard; certainly it was none of my affair; I had nothing to do with it or 
to say about it. 



274 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

By Mr. Pratt: Q. It was not involved in the question submitted to 
you? — A. It was not involved in the question at all, because, as I un- 
derstood, the board of engineers had beforehand determined that for 
wood pavements they would pay so much, for concrete so much, and 
for other kinds so much. The property-holders on a street made a re- 
•quest for whichever pavement they preferred — concrete, Belgian, or 
wooden — and when the petitions of the property-holders were filed with 
the board they gave the different streets the kinds of pavement asked 
for by the people. 

By the Chairman: Q. Had you any knowledge at the time that the 
advisory board had passed a condemnatory judgment upon this very 
pavement upon which the award was made? — A. I had not, nor have 
I now. I only knew that there was a considerable amount of wooden 
pavement to be laid, because the citizens had asked for it. I had no 
knowledge of the matter e.xcept what I got from the papers before me. 
I recollect, among other things, that it was certified from the board of 
public works of Chicago that this pavement had stood there better than 
any other wooden pavement they had ever had, and I believe there was 
similar testimony from the city authorities of San Francisco. 

Q. Had you any previous knowledge as an expert in the qualities of 
different pavements? — A. I had had considerable experience in pat- 
ents and patent law generally. I had been engaged in the Goodyear 
rubber case, in the supreme court, and I was familiar with patent law. 
I have been practicing in the supreme court here since 1866; I do prac- 
tice constantly, as much as my public duties allow. 

Mr. Garfield refuted the idea that he was sought for 
any purpose connected with any possible appropriation 
by congress. 

The Chairman — I don't think, Mr. Garfield, that it has been testified 
here, directly, that any proposition in so many words, was made to you 
in relation to any appropriation made by congress, but there have been 
put in evidence here extracts from letters, which were written by Chit- 
tenden from this city to DeGolyer & McClelland, after interviews with 
you. 

Mr. Garfield — Of course, Mr. Chairman, you will see the utter impos- 
sibility of one man being made responsible for what another man writes 



THE DE GOLYER CONTRACT. 275 

about him. I can not, of course, say what has been written about me. 
If I had it all before me, it would be a very mi.xed chapter, I have no 
doubt, as it would be in the case of any of us. 

The Chairman — There has been no direct testimony that any such 
proposition was ever made to you. 

Mr. Garfield — If there is any testimony of that sort it is false, and I 
shall be obliged if you will let me know. 

Though no one can care what Nickerson may have 
said, on any subject, I cut this further from him, after 
Mr. Garfield's statement. The very last paragraph of 
this singular record : 

Mr. Pratt — Didn't I understand you to say just now, Mr. Nickerson, 
that at the time Mr. Garfield was employed, and at the time he was giv- 
ing the board the result of his examination of the matter, you were 
aware of it, and were anxious for his success ? 

Mr. Nickerson — I say I was interested and anxious for the success of 
the matter, and spent a good deal of time and money in connection 
with it, but I did not know that Mr. Garfield was in at all, at that time. 

The only other witness, and the first called, was Gov. 
Shepherd whose evidence strongly contradicted that the 
contract was received by influence. 

As nobody before that committee, or elsewhere, has 
in any form contradicted Gen. Garfield's statement, it is 
to be taken as entirely true. The busy years had inter- 
vened between the events recited and their narration, he 
had not been permitted to forget them, and he gave the 
same account of them, as in his Warren speech of 
September 19, 1S74. 

The case is this : He had no knowledge of or confer- 
ence with the principals. He did not know that there 
were persons between them and Mr. Parsons. He was 
employed by Mr. Parsons, esteemed as a high-minded 



276 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

and honorable man, to take his place in an important 
case, prepare and make a purely legal and scientific 
argument in it, before a regular official body, having 
jurisdiction of it. We know that the task was ably 
and conscientiously performed. There is not a shadow 
of proof that he was even unconsciously used, or sought 
to be used for any other purpose, however indirectly. 
Beyond his able presentation of the merits of the De 
Golyer pavement, he had nothing to do with procuring 
the contract, nor does it appear that that was fraudulent, 
unfair, or to the harm of the District. 

He had nothing to do with determining the sum to be 
paid Mr. Parsons, nor was there any stipulation between 
Parsons and himself, as to the amount to be received by 
him. Mr. Parsons, a just and generous man, decided 
what he ought to pay, and unasked, paid it. 

In this transaction what nice rule of official conduct, 
what strict law of personal integrity, what severe canon 
of propriety was violated or invaded by Mr, Garfield? 
No public money went for his fee. The District did not 
pay it. No possible action of congress was involved in 
it. Shall it be said that he ought to have suspected 
something? Who, or what ? What was there to put him 
on his guard? Was he a great man, and should he have 
known that something more than his mere argument was 
employed? That he should have known that the weight 
and presence of his influence as a public man were what 
were retained? So a lawyer, an advocate and a civilian 
shall see to it, lest he grows too large, and dwarfs the 
courts, and his very presence amounts to that undue in- 



THE DEGOLYER CONTRACT. 277 

fluence which works a denial of justice, although in this 
instance, no one has claimed that it did. 

If still it is said that Garfield had no such position as 
a lawyer as would warrant the payment to him of five 
thousand dollars, even in a matter of this moment, and 
he ought to have known that himself, it is still to be re- 
membered that he did not bargam for or name the sum, 
nor was he consulted about it. If such are the reader's im- 
pressions of him he is respectfully referred to chapter 
first. Part Third of this work. 

It might be well to ask the reader to remember that 
while Garfield was chief of staff of the army of the Cum- 
berland with power to give passes, and do all that the 
general could do, nothing would have been easier in 
those unscrupulous times, than for a man with a turn for 
thrift to have realized unnumbered thousands in cotton 
and other speculations. So on the ways and means, and 
appropriation committees — what would not men have 
given to increase or reduce a tax, or import, or to secure 
an appropriation? One scorns a reference to the small 
savings of such a man to negative a charge of ve- 
nality; and yet that he has but scant resources after all 
these years of great and splendid services, and has met 
with no pecuniary losses is satisfactory evidence that his 
hand has never touched venal money. 



PART FOURTH. 1874,1880. 



Life at the Capital 
Resumed, 



CHAPTER I. 

THE END OF REPUBLICAN SUPREMACY. 

Pen Sketches. — New Men. — The Record of a Day. — Washington 
Society. 

The last congress of Republican supremacy will re- 
ceive but scantiest mention. The presentation of the 
labors and opinions of General Garfield upon the great 
subjects of revenue, expenditure, and the currency, 
carried us through this congress. I am mindful that 
there are three more congresses to complete our survey 
of his public life, and with briefest reference to some of 
the able men who were his co-laborers in the two 
houses, not hitherto named, so that it may not seem to 
be by implication claimed that he thought and wrought 
in solitude, we will go on. 

Hannibal Hamlin, who has run a most notable ca- 
reer of silent, consistent persistency, returned to the 
senate in 1869, w^ere he still (1880) lingers. Freeling- 
huysen took his seat in the same body, at the extra 
session of March, 187 1. William G. Brownlow, al- 
way Parson of that name, sat there for Tennessee, from 
March, 1872, to 1877. Reuben Fenton became Mr. 
Conkling's colleague in 1869. Belonging to a different 
school of New York politics, he retired in 1875. Ken- 
tucky, on the w^hole, must be regarded as a fortunate 



28o LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

State in her senatorial representation, and among her re- 
markable men who have continued that distinction, must 
be placed the name of Thomas C. McCreevy. Large, 
as becomes Kentucky, black-browed, and, for the most 
part, silent, when he did speak men wondered why he 
did not speak oftener. Even senators listened to him. 
The long, almost great, line of Bayard, was renewed in 
the senate in the person of Thomas Francis Bayard, who 
came in with the Fortieth congress, and tfirough him the 
name receives added lustre. 

Logan passed from the house to the senate in 187 1. 

Among the first men of the senate is to be ranked 
Matt. H. Carpenter, a lawyer and advocate rather than 
a politician. No man there slirpasses him in the mas- 
tery" and presentation of a great subject. He took his 
seat at the extra session of 1869. William B. AlUson 
and William Windom had both made their way to the 
upper house — though the way is absolutely level. So of 
Sargent it is to be said. Able, practical, quick, few 
men have been more useful. He is still a young man, 
but four years older than Garfield, and his valuable aid 
in the great labor of the Forty-second congress. 

John B. Gordon, of Georgia, born the same year with 
Garfield, entered the senate at this congress. He prob- 
ably did more than any other man to restore the tar- 
nished and finally lost name of the South, for ability, 
high character, and statesmanship in congress. He 
added to his distinction by retiring from the senate at 
the beginning of his second term, an act as rare in the 
lives of senators as in those of kings. 



THE END OF REPUBLICAN SUPREMACY. 251 

Benjamin F. Wade (always Frank Wade until pro- 
moted to Ben.) retired with the Forty-second congress, 
and was succeeded by Allen G. Thurman, a very able 
lawyer, and one of the best advocates of the older bar 
of Ohio, and unquestionably one of her most enlight- 
ened judges. He succeeded Mr. Wade in this congress 
where he largely contributed to advance his State to her 
present position. Preponderance in the Republic began, 
and long remained, with A-'irginia, divided with Massachu- 
setts. For a time it hovered over New York, and in the 
later of days plays coquettishly about the maiden brow 
of Ohio. Few of her favored children have done more 
to advance her modest eminence in the councils and 
leading of the Nation, than Senator Thurman. She re- 
gretted to retire him, though to yield his seat to one the 
peer of the best man who ever sat in the senate. 

In the house William P. Frye, of J\Iaine, took his seat 
in this congress, and soon came to be ranked with nis 
colleague older in service, Eugene Hale, among the 
ablest men in the house. Maine has been one of the 
fortunate States in the National councils. 

Luke P. Poland, of Vermont, became a member of 
the Fortieth congress; a very able lawyer, and a genial 
man, who said many things in social life that found cur- 
rency. Save in his unfortunate dealing with the Credit 
Mobilier, of v.hich the reader has the means of forming 
an opinion, the country was a gainer by his service. 

George Hoar was sent to the house for the Forty-first 
congress, and his brother, E. Rockwood Hoar, quite his 
equal — attornej'-general in 1869, was one of his col- 



282 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

leagues in this congress. Wm. A. Wheeler was now an 
old member. 

Clarkson Potter entered in the Forty-first ; Stewart L. 
Woodford and Lyman Tremain came in with the Forty- 
third. Pennsylvania sent Heister Clymer to this con- 
gress, and had Cesna Scofield, Harmer Packer, and 
many other rising men beside. From Virginia came 
Eppa Hunton, an able man, now first appearing. 

From Mississippi also appeared Lucius Q. C. Lamar, 
one of the ablest men of the south, ranking with her 
best of that old time, made ancient by the war. He had 
the doubtful gift of genius, and eloquence in rare meas- 
ure and high quality. 

Ohio sent Charles Foster to the Forty-second congress, 
about as good a thing as she could do, and Saylor and 
Banning to this, which was but so-so. Hugh J- Jewett, 
was one of her notable things, and Lauren D. Wood- 
worth a good thing, as was James Monroe, old colleague 
of Garfield in the Ohio senate. He was returned from 
the Forty-second. R. C. Parsons, former speaker of the 
Ohio house of representatives, long a conspicuous man, 
was returned to this house. Beck, of Kentucky, had 
been in the house from the Fortieth; and Maynard, 
re-entered from Tennessee. There were many other 
new men, many useful, a few advanced to distinction, 
conspicuous of whom was the form of B. H. Hill, of 
Georgia, of whom more hereafter. 

RECORD OF A DAY OUTSIDE. 

Ere I resume the further way of this history, I may 
aid the reader to a better appreciation of the outside 



THE END OF REPUBLICAN SUPREMACY. 283 

field of a representative's labors, which stands thick with 
claims and annoyances, not to say perils, as something 
of the social demands upon his attention, amid which, 
with all their interruptions and perplexities, the labors 
and great reputation of Mr. Garfield were achieved. 

Whoever supposes that the duties and semi-duties of 
the average member of congress are limited to those of 
his representative character, pure and simple, needs light. 
These are mainly his share of work on the committee, the 
discussions in the room, the study, \\Titing of sub-reports 
of cases referred to him, and uniting and considering, final 
reports for the house; the presentation of memorials, at- 
tending in the house, answering official letters, seeing to 
the sending off of public documents, attending to the 
debates, and taking his share in the conduct of such bills 
as have been entrusted to his hands. Laborious and 
exacting as these are, they are the lighter and more 
grateful part of his work, as it is estimated, proper or 
otherwise. Suppose the man is the head of an impor- 
tant committee, one of the ten or twelve who know and 
do the Republic's real work, himself well and largely • 
known, genial and approachable. Take a single day of 
his mosaic yet monotonous life. He rises as soon as he 
can wake and identify himself in the morning, unrefresh- 
ed from scant sleep, dresses as he may, finds a strange, 
uncouth man in his little parlor, whom he has found 
there before, and whom he recognizes as the man from 
Nova, with the greatest discovery of the age — about the 
dozenth time of its discovery and exposure, whom, in a 
moment of forgetfulness, he promised to accompany to 



284 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

the patent office, He had forgotten that; but the grim, 
silent inventor of destiny has not ; this he now adds to 
the other hst for tlaat morning. In the corridor outside — 
he has heard his footfall — is an amateur detective. It is 
said that this species is on the increase. This man draws 
him to the remote corner and whispers, he has just be- 
gun to think he is almost on the track of one of the 
most gigantic frauds ever conspired against the bleeding 
treasury of an already ruined country. He brings letters 
of marque and reprisal from important political dead- 
beats, urging his immediate employment. He is ready 
to proceed to New York at once, all he requires is 
money and a letter of credit. "Go to the secretary.'; 
"The secretary is prejudiced; has been lied to about 
me." "Go to the treasury, secret service." "They are 
all in it. The solicitor is stupid." Finally, "Go to the 

d ," though he never swears; which would be going 

back, and he won't. He is escaped from. At the bot- 
tom of the stairs is that widow with three children, whom 
he had promised to help return to \Visconsin. Just be- 
yond her is the mother with her son, for whom he is 
to see Defrees, and get a place for him in the 
congressional printing office — he will be the ninth refusal 
which the kindly head of that besieged asylum of unfor- 
tunates has been obliged to give him, the present session. 
No matter, though he knows that the chances for a prac- 
tical, easy-going, self-propelling, double-reacting flying 
machine is a flattering probability in comparison; the 
hopeful mother does not. She "knows he can secure 
the place if he will." It is worth adding one more pang 



THE END OF REPUBLICAN SUPREMACY. 285 

to the poor mother that he demonstrate the truth of what 
he says, and he will take her bright-eyed boy, whom he 
likes, with him as a witness. Now he escapes to his be- 
lated breakfast. The sorrows and griefs of cold coffee, 
with toast that has become crusty, are not peculiar to 
Washington. He finds on his plate a note marked 
private, and puts it unopened into an inside pocket, with- 
out the least idea of permitting the secret even a chance 
to escape. A card soon reaches him, and what is more 
serious the carder is not remote. The name, though, is 
all right, and the owner respects his breakfast, not having 
seen or tasted it. He finds his friend in the parlor and 
dismisses him with a pleasant word. There in a corner 
is a timid, shrinking form waiting for him. She had 
been there twice to see him. She was just dismissed 
from the bureau of engraving and printing, for lack of 
funds to pay employes. She has a mother and two 
brothers all out of employment — all mothers and broth- 
ers at the capital alway are. This is genuine. Inno- 
cent and timid, she came to him because they told her 
he had influence; they would do things for him. He 
looks at her; she is not seventeen — sweet as she would 
have been whom he buried so long ago, and whose face he 
wore. Then he looked at her and thought of what might 
happen should she be left to the world. He gave her 
tender words of assurance, and promised God and him- 
self to save her. Then he went out to find a meek, long- 
haired, white-necktied, sandy, seedy individual, who in- 
troduced himself as the Rev. Green Cheese from Arkan- 
sas, a pastor of the church in which the representative 



286 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

some times finds rest. He was specially recommended 
to him as a zealous brother. He came on to Washing- 
ton to raise money to patch the roof and buy a lightning 
rod for his church. He received five dollars for his 
church and a flash for himself, and then the representa- 
tive broke away. 

The greatest discoverer since Newton shouldered up 
his changer of current history — a funny looking package, 
and attended by the boy for the printing office, they hur- 
ry down F street to the patent office — really the de- 
partment of the interior — where he deposits the great 
revolution, for whom he afterward secured a pass on the 
Baltimore & Philadelphia railroad. From there he went 
into the post-office department, across F, to have a stopper 
put on the pay of a mail contractor, until he should pay 
arrears due a sub-contractor in Kansas. Then he hur- 
tled off to the congressional printing office, half a mile 
further, realized his expectations from Mr. Defrees, took 
a car back to the treasury department, had an interview 
with the superintendent of the printing bureau; ran into 
the controller's room, and thence to the secretary of the 
treasury, who showed him an error (caused by the inac- 
curacy of a treasury clerk), in his report — forthcoming — 
to be that day submitted to the appropriation committee 
for final action, and where he waited till the chief of a 
bureau could be sent for, make an excuse and furnish 
the missing link. Then he took a car down Pennsylva- 
nia avenue, into which he was followed by a capital 
tramp. When he reached the capitol he entered by his 
new way, to avoid those awaiting his approach by the 



THE END OF REPUBLICAN SUPREMACY. 287 

usual, and found that now ambushed. He finally- 
reached his committee, where, on mature consideration, 
it was decided that the report must be re-cast, the tables 
gone over with, changes made, the bill re-written, and the 
whole ready at ten o'clock the next forenoon. Then he 
escaped to the restaurant under the capitol, lunched, and 
up a private way into the lobby, in rear of the speaker's 
desk, and so reached his seat after the morning hour. 
The morning's mail encumbered his desk. He clapped 
his hands, a page came, tied it up with the traditional 
tow string of the house and constitution, with orders to 
send it to his boarding house. The debate on the legis- 
lative bill was pending. A gentleman on the speaker's 
right had the floor. Cards came to him; pages came 
with notes. He resisted, watched the debate which he 
was to close after the previous question was ordered. 
He had party consultations, finally had to obey a call 
from the ladies' gallery. There he learned he must go 
to a party that night. There was trouble in the home 
camp. Flabber Gaster was moody and discontented, 
had come on to Washington. The set had decided to 
give him a reception. "Flabber be — ." There was no 
help for it. He listened and tried to catch what the 
gentleman was saying below. Several other eyes, in 
pairs, bored him literally and figuratively, but he got 
back and sat it out, and then set out for home. The 
bores of the house called to him, put their arms in his. 
He was stopped on the way home, met at his own door, 
and found parties awaiting him. He got a good dinner 
at six, pushed the world, and the other two of that trin- 



288 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

ity, out of view, rushed to his own dimly-hghted room, 
locked himself in — and another chap, not developed till 
he turned on the gas. He got rid of him, and before he 
was relieved of those whom the opening door confronted 
him with, it was time to dress for the reception. At half- 
past twelve he sat down to re-cast and finish his report, 
which his secretary had cut up and got ready. The 
committee would be called to-morrow on the floor, where 
he was also to reply to the speeches of to-day. How real, 
yet feeble, this is as a sketch of the daily life of a leading 
member of the house, will be attested by every such man 
who has served in it, within the twenty latest years. 

Let the dreaming young aspirant for congressional 
fame, inspired by the renown of Garfield to imitate his 
career, think of these things with the sturdy of budget 
speeches, the effect of expenditure on prices, the influence 
of the home market on commerce, the essential nature of 
money, the solution of the Protection-Freetrade problem, 
taxation, transportation, and the thousand other things 
which hover in their atmospheres. 

There is then the society side, and the moral aspects 
of the Ufe of a congressman, whether conspicuous or not, 
full of the subtle things which elude the grasp and defy 
transcription, so well and so misleadingly written of in the 
journals, by men who have never apprehended the spirit 
or mastered the philosophy of Washington life, which no 
one comprehends till he has passed the broad glare of the 
free, easy-going, elbowy, rag-tag official society, and been 
admitted to the smaller circles of the real inner social life 
of the capital. 



THE END OF REPUBLICAN SUPREMACY. 289 

We may not follow the one figure of this volume to the 
sanctity of even his semi-public and official residence at 
the capital. We know that was and is a real home, where 
his heart and soul were kept fresh, pure and lofty; where 
his counsels were helpful, and some of his best thoughts 
were inspired as well as molded ; where his strength was 
renewed, where the promise of his youth became inspired 
prophecy, and ripened to its own great fulfilment. Happy, 
fortunate man; most happy, most blessed, in that which 
may be but approached in shadow, and its forms left to 
the magic hand of tender and sympathetic imagination. 

This much may be suggested that this residence came 
to be one of the real centers, where the best of evanes- 
cent official society and the choice of the fixed and real 
met and united in the charm of culture and refinement. 



CHAPTER II 

THE FORTY-FOURTH CONGRESS, iSjs-'yj. 
Return of the Democracy to Power. — Sumner. — Look at the New 
Congress. — Causes of the Counter-Revolution. — Panic of Septem- 
ber, 1873. — Rebel Colors. — Democratic Majority Seventy. — The Sit- 
uation. — Garfield's Patriotic Course. — Amnesty Debate. — Blaine. — 
Hill. — Garfield's Great Reply. — Republicans Vindicated. 

Whoever had looked down from the galleries into the 
senate chamber on the opening of this congress, would 
have been struck with its incompleteness. A sense of 
great absence, which somehow reduced it from his old 
idea to the common-place. In running his eye over the 
assembly, he would at once have realized the cause. 
Sumner was no longer there. Since the departure of the 
old divinities with whom he formed a great group, he had 
stood alone, a gray idol, in the grandeur of his solitude. 
The glamour of his presence transformed the senate 
chamber to a temple. The mighty form was carried out 
and the temple shrunk to the common — became the 
bickering place of common men — who had pitifully 
measured the distance between themselves and him, by 
the petty teazing and annoyance, through which alone 
they approached him. He would also have seen the 
house of Cameron renewed by the son. He would 
have seen Bruce and Booth there. 

Many changes and additions might be noted in the 
290 



1 



THE FORTY-FOURTH CONGRESS. 29 1 

rabble-y house. The curious reader will look these out 
for himself. He will find among the new and newer, 
the names of H. B. Payne, of Ohio, Blackburn, of Ken- 
tucky, Townsend, of New York, Tucker, of Virginia, 
and Watterson, of Kentucky. Mr. Blaine descended to 
the floor, and Michael C. Kerr assumed the gavel. The 
committees had a singular look. The ways and means, 
with Morrison at the heady and James A. Garfield as its 
antithesis, had something suggestive of a kangaroo; 
while the appropriations, with William A. Wheeler, Eu- 
gene Hale and Charles Foster as the base, and tapering 
abruptly to Holman at the top, indicates an apprecia- 
tion of the pyramidal in form. Almost anything with 
S. S. Cox on top, has about it something impish and 
mountebankish, spite of Samuel's versatility and real 
ability. 

The changes repeat themselves through the list. The 
tails had become the heads with results to have been an- 
ticipated. Nothing in our history is so illustrative of the 
really wonderful counter-revolution marked by the return 
of the Democrats to power. In 185 7 they continued their 
party ascendency, having control of every department of 
the government. Within four years of profound peace 
they deliberately and purposely wrecked it, covered the 
ruins with debt, plundered them of what they could make 
off with and fled, the only real service in their power to 
render the Republic. Fifteen years later the people in- 
vited them to their old places, to which they returned 
with an effrontery bordering the sublime. They came 
back the same men, with unchanged views and unim- 



292 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

proved methods. They seem to have been without the 
pale of both of the maxims which ascribe luck to fools, 
and permits them to profit by experience. 

There is something in the mere habit, the use of gov- 
erning, by which common men become facile in adminis- 
tering authority. The Democrats certainly did not have 
this facility to govern under Mr. Buchanan. Fifteen years 
of opposition in all forms, from bloody revolution and 
war to the factious use of the forms of legislation, had not 
greatly enlightened them. From opposition, where men 
had won fame, they suddenly found themselves the af- 
firmative, when at once it was seen that in comparison with 
the now opposition the leaders were but second and 
third-rate men, and they made haste to place themselves 
in the guiding hands of the famous committee of thirteen. 
It may not have been their fault that they were unequal to 
the task of government. Their attempt certainly has 
been disastrous to the country. It certainly is desirable 
that they should acquire knowledge — experience in legis- 
lative skill. The Republic certainly should provide some 
Other school. For the Nation it is too expensive, while 
for them, like the instance mentioned by the younger Mr. 
Weller, it has proved a " pursuit of knowledge under dif- 
ficulties." 

General Garfield, from the organization of the first ses- 
sion to the present, remained with his Republican asso- 
ciates at the foot of the various committees to which the 
judgment of the speakers of the house assigned them; in 
this congress he was placed on the ways and means, a 
post he continued to hold to the end. He also served 



THE FORTY-FOURTH CONGRESS. 293 

on the committee of the Pacific railroad with Lamar. In 
the Forty-sixth he was placed on the select committee 
on rules, of which Speaker Randall was chairman, with 
Alexander H. Stephens, ex-vice-president of the confed- 
eracy, who found his way back to the' house at the 
Forty-third congress, where he had served in the Twenty- 
eighth, Twenty-ninth, Thirtieth, Thirty-first, Thirty- 
second, Thirty-fourth and Thirty- fifth congresses. Jos- 
eph C. Blackburn and William Fry were also on this com- 
mittee. The committee made a thorough revision of the 
rules of the house. Having conducted Mr. Garfield 
across the chasm of the Credit Mobilier and the revolu- 
tion which placed him in opposition surrounded by the 
old and new men, I drop the slight thread of personal 
narrativa, and without further regard to chronology shall 
exhibit him in some of the more striking scenes, some of 
the great occasions where he led the forces of the Repub- 
licans in the memorable struggles which mark some of 
the succeeding years as parliamentary epochs in the his- 
tory- of congress, and American politics. 

THE BATTLE FOR AMNESTY. 

There had been a sudden, and for the time a hopeless 
breaking down of the Republican party. There was a 
majority of seventy against it in the house of the Forty- 
fourth congress. What led up to this requires a word. 

In September, 1S73, came the panic attributed to the 
Jay Cooke failure, due to the generally precarious condi- 
tion of financial affairs. Disaster was followed by dis- 
tress. The common mind attributes all general business 
disturbances to the dominant party in the government, as 



294 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

in its same luminous logic, it, in a more silent way, 
gives it credit for the flush times of general prosperity, 
however little it could have influenced either. 

The candidacy of Mr. Greeley and its failure, left col- 
lectively, a mass of Republicans outside the party, to 
find their way back or elsewhere as might happen; as there 
were also numerous independent Greeley men, to be es- 
timated among the factors of possible new political com- 
binations. There was general discontent, and wide and 
deep distrust pervading the North. South, there was the 
breaking down and disappearance of Republican domina- 
tion in many of the States, and its rapid disappearance 
from that political hemisphere, was easily forecast. The 
panic pressure created the natural but absurd demand 
for more currency, of which, in the fragmentary condi- 
tion of politics, was born the Greenback party, which 
drew alike from both political organizations. 

In the flush and arrogance of their great success, the 
unconsolidated multitude called the Democratic party, 
threw off the light veil which had decorously lent the 
guise of seeming loyalty to the bodyless idea — the Na- 
tion. Rebellion was at the top, through the South, and 
the more disreputable old copperheadism of the war, 
was again aggressive at the North. This was the one 
animating bond of union among the incongruous ele- 
ments of the Democratic party, and unblushingly asserted 
itself at the capital. Now for the first time appears in 
the annual congressional directory, the ofificial positions — 
the entire record, of the offices, battles and services, 
rendered by each of the southern representatives, in sup- 



THE FORTY-FOURTH CONGRESS. 295 

port of the great rebellion, v/hich only failed to destroy 
the Republic which they came back to rule, superciliously 
flaunted in the face of the Union — the sole pretense of 
claim and fitness to guide and protect its life. Hitherto, 
Major Ben. Perley Poore's useful, little annuals were 
silent as to the w^ays and lives of the rebel leaders. 
They merely gave him the date and place of birth, with 
scant mention of education and profession, and for the 
rest, prudent silence. Now they came emulous for emi- 
nence won in the war of distinction. Of course, they 
had place. Carpet-baggery yielded to brigadiery. Of 
course, copperheadism submissively yielded to the legi- 
timate headship of the leaders of the rebellion, and in 
place of open, brave service, could only plead the hearty 
sympathy and cowardly aid they rendered the rebel- 
lion, in the guise and within the lines of the Union. 
That they made large showing, was abundantly plain 
by the old records of the house itself. 

While the re-constructed Democracy of un-re-con- 
structed rebels and copperheads, thus, with natural inde- 
cency, paraded their disloyalty as a civic merit, the Re- 
publicans took their diminished places in the house, 
humiliated and angry, not in a mood to make swift 
direct haste to obeisance, and apology for their conduct 
in the war and since, and yet they appeared with a manly 
determination to patriotically do their duty as represen- 
tatives. How natural for them to combine and resolve 
to oppose by open war and covert ambuscade, bush- 
whack, and shoot down — these trained veterans the 
undisciplined mass, most of them raw levies. Garfield, 



296 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

with his heavy guns, his absolute mastery of all arms, 
able to hold the field alone in battle royal with the whole 
host; Blaine, "plumed knight" as he is, dashing, lance 
in rest, into their midst, carrying dismay and confusion ; 
Hale, Fry, Foster, Kasson, Conger, Townsend, Hoar, 
Wilson, and a host of lieutenants and followers, many fit 
to lead thousands. 

Garfield took his assigned place on the committee, 
and gave himself laboriously to his duties, certain that 
with time would come a return of the people to a cor- 
rect appreciation of the causes which produced the pres- 
ent depressed condition of the country. He knew that 
a reaction was certain to occur, sufficient in itself to 
restore a political equihbrium. It was not, however, in 
the nature of things, — such things as Democrats in their 
colors, and Republicans in their humiliation and anger, 
under the leadership of Blaine — to dwell long in harmony. 
The battle came, on Mr. Blaine's amendment to the 
general amnesty bill, under Mr. Randall's charge, Janu- 
ary II, 1876. The bill was a sponge removing the last 
disqualification of the last rebel from the national black- 
board. The amendment excepted some seven hundred 
and fifty specially obnoxious until they should signify 
their assent to it, by taking an oath of allegiance, and 
Jefferson Davis by name. With much skirmishing and 
fencing between Blaine and Randall, Mr. Blaine finally 
rushed in on his amendment; he certainly had not pre- 
pared his proofs. The first clause of his proposition was 
rapidly passed over in the terse and vigorous sentences of 
a perfect master of debate. When he reached the second, 



THE FORTY-FOURTH CONGRESS. 297 

a vigorous stroke reduced the great and revered leader of 
a great cause to the ridiculous position of being less 
dangerous to the Republic as the head of the Confed- 
eracy, and more useful to us as a disturber of rebel 
councils. He then arraigned him directly for complicity 
in the crimes of Libby and Andersonville, comparing 
him with the duke of Alva, to the advantage of the 
Spanish general, finishing the well wrought sentence of 
accusation, so as to permit emphasis with a burst of 
applause, swelled by the galleries. Robbins, of North 
Carolina, pronounced it a slander. The speaker threat- 
ened the galleries. Blaine went on, fortified by the report 
of the investigation of Andersonville, the horrors of which 
lost nothing by his vigorous handling. He read rebel or- 
der "number thirteen," to open with grape and canister 
on the thirty-five thousand shadows and skeletons of pris- 
oners at Andersonville, upon the approach of Sherman's 
army. He charged Mr. Davis with being party to this, 
as well as conceaUng the condition of the prisoners from 
the generous southern people. For the last he quoted 
from his messages. 

Then came in a contest over the mutual treatment of 
prisoners. 

For these reasons he urged that Mr. Davis should be 
excepted from amnesty. 

This masterly piece of accusatory invective, at a blow, 
burst the thin shell which had encased the undying fires 
of the war, and they flamed forth more fiercely and 
threateningly than ever before, on the floor. It was per- 
fectly proper that the northern Democrats should be first 



298 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

heard in defense of their great ally, and supple and 
ready Mr. Cox — some time from Ohio, but now from 
New York, yet always Sam Cox — was the first to get the 
floor. Versatile, able, shrewd, witty, experienced, master 
of the smaller, of the more effective weapons of ridicule 
and wit, with malice enough to make them cutting, he 
replied at length, bringing Republicans to their feet, and 
quoting poetry and the psalms. 

Mr. Hill, of Georgia, got the floor, and the house ad- 
journed. 

The re-opening the old war, in its fierce reckless dis- 
regard of consequences, struck the capital aghast. The 
thing went flashing over the wires, filling the country 
with dismay. These were not the only emotions pro- 
duced. Hundreds of thousands of ardent, oppressed 
hearts responded with a battle-cry of joy. Most Repub- 
licans applauded, the few disapproved of, the course of 
Mr. Blaine. Those who were alarmed at possible con- 
sequences, admired, while they trembled. 

Night came down on the startled and anxious capi- 
tal. An immense throng, densely packed galleries, 
all the corridors, lobbies, and every available space 
throbbing with hearts too pressed by human forms to 
find beating room, the house opened the next morning. 
There was about and over it, and the whole immense 
pile of which it was a part, the nameless air of expectancy 
and dread. The flag as it ran up and floated out seemed 
to diff'use omen from its folds, as if conscious of what 
was being wrought below. While the preliminaries of 
the morning are being enacted let us see what 



THE FORTY -FOURTH CONGRESS. 299 

account Mr. Hill gives of himself in Major Poore's 
hand-book of the Forty-fourth congress: "Born in 1823, 
Jasper county, Georgia; admitted to the bar in 1845; 
elected to Georgia legislature in 1851 and 1859; elected 
to the Confederate senate; elected to the Forty-fourth 
congress." He had never led a Confederate regi- 
ment, and that was always his reproach. It has cost him 
a great deal of bluster and mock heroics to supply that 
unpardonable vacancy. He was now to interpose his 
shield between his fallen chief and the lance of Blaine. 
The South has no abler man than this half-repudiated, 
half-snubbed Confederate-United-States senator, whom 
the Georgia people know and trust, when their leaders 
would not. 

He arose and made for the Republicans one of the 
most dangerous speeches given forth in congress, since 
they were put in the minority. AVith advantages of per- 
son and voice, it was very effective. In moving tones he 
sadly deprecated a re-opening of old wounds. The leader 
of the Republican party had done it, for an evil purpose. 
The South deplored it, asked for only peace and frater- 
nal amity, amnesty, oblivion, and love. He was com- 
pelled to vindicate the truth of history, which from his 
point he proceeded to do, in an able, skilful, adroit and 
damaging way. Moving effectively over the intervening 
ground, he grappled with the accusation against Davis, 
and exposed the weakness and inconclusiveness of the 
evidence on which it rested, which was shown to be very 
feeble. He ranged over the whole field of the rebel 
offers to exchange prisoners, with papers and dates. 



300 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

When Blaine broke in upon him with his own resolution 
in the Confederate senate, to put to death all Union sol- 
diers found in the Confederate States after January i, 
1863, Hill could not tell whether he was the author of 
it. It was a staggering blow. Blaine then read to him his 
resolution to put to death all Union officers command- 
ing negro troops, or who should entice away slaves, on 
capture. These were sad interruptions to the otherwise 
calm flow of the refreshing streams of charity and kind- 
ness, which, according to Mr. Hill, were running out to 
Union prisoners in rebel prisons. Nothing, perhaps, 
better showed the facile power and versatility of Mr. 
Hill, than his recovery from these assaults, which he was 
compelled to leave unanswered and uncontradicted. He 
had material and power enough to climb out on the 
other side of the gulf, re-form, and push his powerful 
attack upon the Republican camp, and concluded with 
a moving appeal for amnesty, peace, concord, fraternity, 
and sat down, with the galleries and floor shaken by 
responsive applause. It was a great, a complete answer 
to Blaine. It seemed a triumphant vindication of the 
South, which for sixteen years had not stood so erect 
and proud in the house as now. The Republicans were 
greatly depressed, and began to query whether there 
was a real South side to the subject involved in the dis- 
cussion. Ere the applause ceased, and while enthusias- 
tic congratulations were yet being pressed upon the hero 
of the South, now the greater man of its champions, 
Mr. Garfield calmly arose, and was awarded the floor, 
but yielded to a message from the senate, announcing its 



THE FORTY-FOURTH CONGRESS. 3OI 

mortuary action upon the demise of the late Andrew 
Johnson, some time President of the United States, It 
was a fitting time for the responses of his late enemies, 
now mourning friends, to unite in proper tribute, and the 
Republicans retired and left them mingling tears, mourn- 
ing voices, and songs of triumph, over his name and 
memory. 

The startled feeling of alarm which rested upon the 
capital on the first night of the debate, had in a way 
shifted to one of great anxiety, if not of real apprehen- 
sion, on the part of the Republicans, under the effect of 
the masterly speech of Mr. Hill. While he had received 
great personal damage from the relentless hand of Blaine 
yet inasmuch as his propositions to murder Unionists 
captured in arms were rejected by the bodies to whom 
they were offered, the South had in no way suffered, but 
had rather gained. The only comfort was that Garfield 
had the floor for the next day, and was now the sole 
hope — unquestionably by position, native power, acqui- 
sition and training, the best man in congress for the 
labor which belonged to him, and which fell as naturally 
to his hand as does the ordinary work of life to the com- 
mon men of the world. And undoubtedly had the Re- 
publican leaders of both houses been consulted he would 
have been the man selected with unanimity for the task. 

It would be worth a visit to Washington from a remote 
part of the Republic to witness the capital itself and its 
masses of human beings, gathered on one of these great 
occasions. To hear the great vindication of the Repub- 
lican management of the war, from the assault of Hill, by 



302 LIFE OF JAMES A, GARFIELD. 

Garfield and feel that we might still cherish the memory 
of the country's great leaders against the rebels in 
arms, and against their assaults in the house, was worth 
a pilgrimage. Amid a greater throng, under a larger ex- 
pectation, not free from anxiety on the part of the Re- 
publicans, he arose after a protracted morning hour, of 
January 1 2th, to answer the speech of the day before. 
It was one of the three or four great occasions where the 
champion of northern civilization and institutions has 
met the champion of southern civilization in the capitol 
in one of the inevitable contests which will arise from 
institutions so incongruous, until in new crystallizations 
and growths at the South the antagonisms shall disappear. 
Calmly he arose, as if to an ordinary question. A hush 
came over the vast throng, and he proceeded at once 
without exordium, to the work in hand. He did not 
stop to examine or reply to Mr. Cox. The real matter, 
he said, was not whether amnesty should be conferred 
upon the residue of the rebels. Nothing had been said 
of that. The real labor was the arraignment of the gov- 
ernment of the United States for the last fifteen years. 
He quoted a crisp paragraph of condensed accusation 
as the heart of Mr. Hill's speech, around which all its 
points gather in support. He then stated the rise of the 
debate. The house was asked for a sweeping amnesty, to 
embrace those alike who were ashamed to ask it, and 
those who preferred to remain marked out and conspicu- 
ous by not receiving it. It came from the friends, asso- 
ciates of the men. The Republicans, who had been lib- 
eral in extending amnesty, wished merely to examine and 



THE FORTY-FOURTH CONGRESS. 303 

criticise the scheme. They objected to but one man. 
He thus stated his own position on the general question, 
as also what the war had settled. 

Let me say in the outset that, so far as I am personally concerned, I 
have never voted against any proposition to grant amnesty to any hu- 
man being who has asked for it at the bar of the house. Furthermore, 
I appeal to gentlemen on the other side who have been with me in this 
hall many years, whether at any time they have found me truculent in 
spirit, unkind in tone or feeling toward those who fought against us in 
the late war. Twelve years ago this very month, standing in this place, 
I said this: 

"I BELIEVE A TRUCE 

could be struck to-day between the rank and file of the hostile armies 
now in the field. I believe they could meet and shake hands together, 
joyful over returning peace, each respecting the courage and manhood 
of the other, and each better able to live in amity than before the war." 

I am glad to repeat word for word what I said that day. For the 
purposes of this speech I will not even claim the whole ground which 
the government assumed toward the late rebellion. Forthe sake of the 
present argument, I will view the position of those who took up arms 
against the government in the light least offensive to them. 

Leaving out of sight for the moment the question of slavery, which 
evoked so much passion, and which was the producing cause of the late 
war, there were still two opposing political theories which met in con- 
flict. Most of the Southern statesmen believed that their first obedi- 
ence was due to their State. We believed that the allegiance of an 
American citizen was due to the National government, not by the way 
of a State capital, but in a direct line from his own heart to the govern- 
ment of the Union. Now, that question was submitted to the dreadful 
arbitrament of war, to the court of last resort — a court from which there 
is no appeal, and to which all other powers must bow. To that dread 
court the great question was carried, and there the right of a State to 
secede was put to rest forever. 

The committee that investigated Andersonville was 
called a humbug, an ex parte committee. He showed 



304 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

that it was made up of Republicans and Democrats. It 
was a joint committee of both houses, called for by the 
secretary of war. He read criminatory passages from its 
report convicting the Confederate authorities of the gross- 
est offences toward Union prisoners. It had been before 
the country twelve years as a charge from the Nation, in 
its representative character, accusing these men in the 
face of the world, at the bar of public opinion, in the 
presence of histor}', which was being written, and the 
accused had not denied or explained the charges. Were 
the charges true? 

To this he addressed himself directly, showing that he 
held the proofs in a masterly grasp. Who was the 
agent employed and who worked the atrocities for which 
new names must be invented, and who appointed him? 
The man was Winder. Who was he? The personal 
friend of Davis, appointed by him to this duty, of whom 
when he left Richmond to establish and govern Ander- 
sonville, the Richmond Examiner said, fervently: 
"Thank God Richmond is at last rid of old Winder. 
God have mercy on those to whom he has been sent!" 

And this is the report of a rebel officer as to the man- 
ner in which Davis' friend and fellow-worker discharged 
the merciful and humane duty assigned to him. 

Anderson, January 5, 1864. 

Colonel: Having, in obedience to instructions of the twenty-fifth 
ultimo, carefully inspected the prison for Federal prisoners of war and 
post at this place, I respectfully submit the following report: 

The Federal prisoners of war are confined within a stockade fifteen 
feet high, of roughly hewn pine logs about eight inches in diameter, 
inserted five feet into the ground, inclosing, including the recent exten- 



THE FORTY-FOURTH CONGRESS. 305 

sion, an area of five hundred and forty by two hundred and sixty yards. 
A railing round the inside of the stockade, and about twenty feet from 
it, constitutes the "dead hne," beyond which the prisoners are not 
allowed to pass, and about three and one-fourth acres near the center 
of the enclosure are so marshy as to be at present unfit for occupation, 
reducing the available present area to about twenty-three and one-half 
acres, which gives something less than six square feet to each prisoner. 
Even this is being constantly reduced by the additions to their number. 
A small stream passing from west to .east through the inclosure, at 
about one hundred and fifty yards from its southern limit, furnishes the 
only water for washing accessible to the prisoners. Some regimen of 
the guard, the baker)', and the cook house being placed on the rising 
grounds bordering the stream before it enters the prison, render the 
water nearly unfit for use before it reaches the prisoners. * * 

D. T. Chandler, 
Assistant Adjutant and Inspector General. 
Col. R. H. Chilton, Assistant Adjutant and Inspector General. 

Mr. Hill had read the order for the establishment of 
the prison thus executed, and he thus speaks of it. 

Here is an official exhibit of the manner in which the officer detailed 
by Jeff. Davis chose the place for health, with "running water, and 
agreeable shade." He chose a piece of forest-ground that had a mias- 
matic marsh in the heart of it and a small stream running through it ; 
but the troops stationed outside of tlie stockade were allowed to defile 
its pure water before it could reach the stockade; and then, as if in the 
very refinement of cruelty, as if to make a mockery of the order quoted 
by the gentleman from Georgia, he detailed men to cut down every tree 
and shrub in the inclosure, leaving not a green leaf to show where the for- 
est had been. And subsequently, when the burning sun of July was pour- 
ing down its fiery heat upon the heads of these men, with but six square 
feet of ground to a man, a piteous petition was made by the prisoners 
to Winder to allow these poor men to be detailed to go outside, under 
guard, and cut pine from the forest to make arbors under which they 
could shelter themselves, and they were answered with all the loatlisome 
brutality of malignant hate, that they should have no bush to shelter 



3o6 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

them; and thus, under the fierce rays of the southern sun, they miser- 
ably perished. 

These last statements are made on the authority of Ambrose Spencer, 
a planter of Georgia, who resided within five miles of Andersonville. 
I quote from his testimony. 

This he did, fully sustaining his statement. 
Here is more from Colonel Chandler: 

Andersonville, August 5, 1864. 
Colonel ■. * * * 

My duty requires me respectfully to recommend a change in the offi- 
cer in the command of the post, Brigadier General J. H. Winder, and 
the substitution in his place of some one who unites both energy and 
good judgment with some feeling of humanity and consideration for 
the welfare and comfort (so far as is consistent with their safe keeping) 
of the vast number of unfortunates placed under his control ; some 
one who at least will not advocate deliberately and m cold blood, the 
propriety of leaving them in their present condition until their number 
has been sufficiently reduced by death to make the present arrange- 
ment suffice for their accommodation ; who will not consider it a mat- 
ter of self-laudation and boasting that he has never been inside of the 
stockade, a place the horrors of which it is difficult to describe, and 
which is a disgrace to civilization, the condition of which he might, by 
the e.xercise of a little energy and judgment, even with the limited 
means at his command, have considerably improved. 

D. T. Chandler, 
Assistant Adjutant and Inspector General. 
Colonel R H. Chilton, 
Assistant Adjutant and Inspector General C. S. A., 
♦ Richmond, Virginia. 

Mr. Reagan, of Texas, late of Mr. Davis' cabinet, un- 
dertook to claim that this report never reached President 
Davis. This was thus met: 

The adjutant general is the clerk of tlie secretary of war, and the 
secretary of war is in turn the clerk of the President. But the gentle- 
man from Texas [Mr. Reagan] will soon see that he cannot defend 



THE FORTY-FOURTH CONGRESS. 307 

Davis by the indorsement of General Cooper. The report did not stop 
with the adjutant general. It was carried up higher and nearer to Davis. 
It was delivered to Assistant Secretary Campbell, who wrote the indorse- 
ment I have just read. The report was lodged with the department of 
war, whose chief was one of the confidential advisers of Mr. Davis — a 
member of his official family. What was done with it ? The record 
shows, Mr. Speaker, that a few days thereafter an order was made in 
reference to General Winder. To what effect ? Promoting him ! Add- 
ing to his power tn the field of his infamy! He was made commissary- 
general of all the prisons and prisoners tliroughout the confederacy. 
That was the answer that came as the result of this humane report of 
Colonel Chandler ; and that new appointment of Winder came from 
Mr. Seddons, the Confederate secretary of war. 

A Member. By order of the President. 

Mr. Garfield. Of course all appointments were made by the Presi- 
dent, for the gentleman from Georgia says they carried our constitution 
with them and hugged it to their bosoms. But that is not all. The 
testimony of the Wirz trial shows that at one time the secretary of war 
himself became shocked at the brutality of Winder, and, in a moment 
of indignation, relieved him from command. 

Again, Assistant Adjutant General Chilton, reporting 
August 18, 1864, said that the prison "is a reproach to us 
as a Nation," and this is endorsed by the assistant secre- 
tary of war; and so he went on, calmly, relentlessly, to 
fix this charge of complicity, in all the nameless horrors, 
on the rebel chief. Then he turned to vindicate the 
humanity of the treatment of rebel prisoners in our 
hands. He read the following from Hill's speech: 

When the gentleman from Maine addresses the house again let him 
add to it that the atrocities of Andersonville do not begin to compare 
with the atrocities of Elmira, of Fort Douglass, or of Fort Delawpxe; 
and of all the atrocities both at Andersonville and Elmira, the Confed- 
erate government stands acquitted from all responsibility and blame. 

He said he stood in its presence with amazement 



3o8 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

beyond expression. He demanded of the three Demo- 
crats on the floor, who represented the districts where 
these places were situated, whether the statements were 
true? He paused, and no answers came. At that mo- 
ment a telegram, received from Colonel Tracy, former 
commandant at Elmira, was placed, in his hand, denying 
the charge in the strongest terms, and alleging that the 
prisoners had the same fare as our own soldiers. Then 
Walker, the Democrat from the Elmira district, arose and 
declared that the statements of Colonel Tracy were true 
in every respect. Immediately a telegram from General 
Elwell was read, confirming it also. 

"The lightnings are our witness," said the general, 
amid vociferous applause. 

Mr. Hill. In response to what the gentleman has said, I desire to 
state as a fact what I personally know, that on the last occasion of 
decorating soldiers' graves in the South, our people, uniting with the 
northern soldiers there, decorated in harmonious accord the graves of 
the fallen Federals and the graves of the fallen Confederates. It is be- 
cause of this glorious feeling that is being awakened in the country that 
I protest against the revival of these horrors about any prison. 

Mr. Garfield. So do I. Who brought it here? [Cries from the 
Democratic side of the house, "Blaine! Blaine!"] We will see as to 
that. I wish this same fraternal feeling could come out of the graveyard 
and display itself toward the thirty or forty maimed Union soldiers 
who were on duty around this capitol, but who have been displaced by 
an equal number of soldiers on the other side. [Applause. ] 

The effect of the testimonies was very great. Run- 
ning on amid interruptions and applause, he made this 
authoritative statement, that we captured of the Confed- 
erates four hundred and seventy-nine thousand one hun- 
dred and sixty-nine prisoners, and they captured one 



THE FORTY-FOURTH CONGRESS. 309 

hundred and eighty-eight thousand one hundred and 
forty-five of the Union soldiers. 

The time expired, and Mr. Hill moved that it be 
extended. 

On the point made by Hill, that we refused an exchange 
of prisoners, Garfield went on to show that the trouble 
began in consequence of Hill's own resolution of Octo- 
ber, 1S62. 

' ' Resolved, That every person pretending to be a soldier or officer of 
the United States who shall be captured on the soil of the Confederate 
States after the first of January, 1863, shall be presumed to have 
entered the territory of the Confederate States with intent to excite 
insurrection and to abet murder, and that unless satisfactory proof be 
adduced to the contrary before the military court before which his trial 
shall be had, he shall suffer death." 

That was the first step in the complication m regard to the exchange 
of prisoners of war. That resolution appears to have borne early 
fruits. 

On the twenty-second day of December, 1862, Jefferson Davis, the 
man for whom amnesty is now being asked, issued a proclamation, a 
copy of which I hold in my hand. I read two paragraphs: 

First. That all commissioned officers in the command of said Ben- 
jamin F. Butler be declared not entitled to be considered as soldiers 
engaged in honorable warfare, but as robbers and criminals deserving 
death; and that they, and each of them be, whenever captured, re- 
served for execution. 

Mr. Hill. A reason is stated for that. 

Mr. Garfield. The reason is in the preamble. I am not discussing 
the reasons for this extraordinary proclamation, but its effects upon 
the exchange of prisoners. 

Third. That all negro slaves captured in arms be at once delivered 
over to the executive authorities of the respective States to which they 
belong, to be dealt with according to the laws of said States. 

Fourth. That the like orders be executed in all cases with respect to 
all commissioned officers of the United States when found serving in 



3IO LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

company with said slaves in insurrection against the authorities of the 
different States of this Confederacy. 

These men were serving, not Benjamin F. Butler, but the Union. 
They did not choose him 'as their general. They were assigned to 
him ; and by this proclamation that assignment consigning them to death 
at the hands of their captors. But the second question was still more 
important. It was an order that all men who had been slaves and had 
enlisted under the flag of the Union, should be denied all the rights of 
soldiers, and when captured should be dealt with as runaway slaves 
under the laws of the States where they formerly belonged, and that 
commissioned officers who commanded them should be denied the 
rights and privileges of prisoners of war. The decision of the Union 
people everywhere was that, great as was the suffering of our poor sol- 
diers at Andersonville and elsewhere, we would never make an exchange 
of prisoners until the manhood and rights of our colored soldiers were 
acknowledged by the belligerent power. And for long, weary months 
we stood upon that issue, and most of the suffering occurred while we 
waited for that act of justice to be done on the other side. 

To enforce this proclamation of Mr. Davis a law was passed on the 
first of May, 1863, by the Confederate congress, reported, doubtless, 
from the judiciary committee by the gentleman who spoke yesterday, 
and in that law the principles of the proclamation I have just read were 
embodied and expanded. Section four of the law reads as follows: 

Sec. 4. That every white person, being a commissioned officer or 
acting as such, who, during the present war, shall command negroes 
or mulattoes in arms against the Confederate States, or who shall arm, 
train, organize, or prepare negroes or mulattoes for military service 
against the Confederate States, or who shall voluntarily aid negroes or 
mulattoes in any military enterprise, attack, or conflict in such service, 
shall be deemed as inciting servile insurrection, and shall, if captured, 
be put to death or be otherwise punished, at the discretion of the court. 

Sec. 5. Every person, being a commissioned officer or acting as 
such in the service of the enemy, who shall, during the present war, e.x- 
cite, attempt to excite, or cause to be e.xcited, a servile insurrection, or 
who shall incite or cause to be incited a slave to rebel shall, if cap- 
tured, be put to death, or be otherwise punished, at the discretion of 
the court. 



THE FORTY- FOURTH CONGRESS. 3II 

Sec. 7. All negroes and mulattoes who shall be engaged in war, or 
be taken in arms against the Confederate States, or shall give aid or 
comfort to the enemies of the Confederate States, shall, when captured 
in the Confederate States, be delivered to the authorities of the State 
or States in which they shall be captured, to be dealt with according to 
the present or future laws of such State or States. 

Approved May i, 1863. 

Now, Mr. Speaker, I am here to say that this position taken by the 
head of the Confederacy, indorsed by his congress and carried into 
e.xecution by his officers, was the great primal trouble in all this busi- 
ness of the exchange of prisoners. There were minor troubles, such 
as claims by both sides that paroles had been violated. I think General 
Halleck reported that a whole division of four brigades, Stevenson's 
division, which had not been properly exchanged, fought us at Look- 
out iMountain; but that may have been a mistake. It was one of the 
points in controversy. But the central question was that of the govern- 
ment of the United States having committed itself to the doctrine that 
the negro was a man and not chattel, and that being a man he had a 
right to help us in fighting for the Union, and being a soldier we would 
perish rather than he should not be treated as a soldier. 

To show that I am not speaking at random I will read from a report 
which I hold in my hand; a report of the Secretary of War on tlie dif- 
ficulty of the exchange of prisoners. This paper is dated August 24, 
1864. I think it is a misprint for 1863, from what surrounds it; but no 
matter as to that. It was in August General Meredith reported: 

To my demand " that all officers commanding negro troops, and 
negro troops themselves, should be exchanged as such," Mr. Ould de- 
clined acceding, remarking that they (the rebels) would " die in the 
last ditch" before giving up the right to send slaves back to slavery as 
property recaptured. 

He pursued the ungrateful subject of the exchange, 
with other evidence of a pointed nature, until he estab- 
lished that the failure to exchange was the fault of the 
rebels. He turned his guns again upon the ex-Confed- 
erate chief He touched tenderly upon the offence of 



312 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

those who, having sworn to support the constitution, yet 
turned their backs on their oath of fideUty, but said : 

There were some passages in the speech of yesterday which make 
me less reluctant to speak of breaking oaths. He [Mr. Hill] said : 

• ' We charge all our wrongs to that ' higher law, ' fanaticism, which 
never kept a pledge or obeyed a law. We sought to leave the associa- 
tion of those who would not keep fidelity to covenant. We sought to 
go by ourselves ; but, so far from having lost our fidelity to the consti- 
tution, we hugged it to our bosoms and carried it with us. * * * 
But you, gentlemen, who persecuted us by your infidelities until you 
drove us out of the Union, you who then claimed to be the only friends 
of the Union, which you had before denounced as a 'league with hell 
and a covenant with death," you who follow up the war w-hen the sol- 
diers who fought it have made peace and gone to their homes, to you 
we have no concessions to make. Martyrs owe no apology to tyrants." 

There is a certain sublimity of assumption in this which challenges 
admiration. Why, the very men of whom we are talking, who broke 
their oaths of office to the Nation — when we are speaking of relieving 
them we are told that they w-ent out because we broke the constitution 
and would not be bound by oaths. Did we break the constitution? 
Did we drive them out? I invoke the testimony of Alexander H. 
Stephens, now a member of this house, who, standing up in the seces- 
sion convention of Georgia, declared that there was no just ground 
for Georgia's going out ; declared that the election of a -President ac- 
cording to the constitution, was no justifiable ground for secession, 
and declared that, if under the circumstances the South should go out, 
she would herself be committing a gigantic wrong, and would call 
down tipon herself the thunders and horrors of civil war. 

Thus spoke Alexander H. Stephens in i860. Over against anything 
that may be said to the contrary, I place his testimony that we did not 
force the South out ; that they went out against all the protests and 
the prayers and the humiliation that a great and proud Nation could 
make without absolute disgrace. 
*****«*■'' 

Mr. Garfield. If the gentleman has understood me he cannot fail to 
see that I have not used the word (perjury) in any offensive sense, but 



THE FORTV-FOURTH CONGRESS. 313 

in its plain and ordinary acceptation, as used in law. We held that 
the United States was a Nation, bound together by a bond of perpet- 
ual union; a union which no State or any combination of States, which 
no man or any combination of men, had the right, under the constitu- 
tion, to break. The attempt of tlie South to overthrow the Union 
was crime against the government — the crime of rebeUion. It is so 
known to the laws of Nations. It is so described in the decisions of 
the supreme court. 

The gentleman from North Carolina [Mr. Davis] calls the war on one 
side a raid. I will never consent to call our war for the Union "a raid," 
least of all a raid upon the rights of any human being. I admit there 
was a political theory of State rights — a theory held, no doubt, bygen- 
themen like the gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Tucker] who spoke a mo- 
ment ago — believed in as sincerely as I believe in the opposite — which 
led them to think it was their duty to go when their State went. I ad- 
mit that that greatly mitigates all that the law speaks of as a violation 
of an oath. But I will never admit (for history gives the lie to the 
statement in every line) that the men of the Union were making a 
"raid" upon the rights of the South. 

Now that slavery, the guilty cause of the rebellion, is no more, and 
that, so far as I know nobody wants it restored — I do not believe these 

gentlemen from the South desire its restoration 

Mr. Hill. We would not have it. 

Mr. Garfield. They would not have it, the gentleman from Georgia 
says. Then let us thank God that in the fierce flames of war the insti- 
tution of slavery has been consumed ; and out of its ashes let us hope 
a better than the fabled Phceni.x of old will arise — a love of the Union 
high and deep, ' ' as broad and general as the casing air, " enveloping us 
all, and that it shall be counted no shame for any man who is not still 
under political disabilities to say with uplifted hand, "I will be true to 
it and take the proffered anmesty of the Nation." But let us not ten- 
der it to be spurned. If it is worth having it is worth asking for. 

And now, Mr. Speaker, I close as I began. Toward those men who 
gallantly fought us on the field I cherish the kindest feeling. I feel a 
sincere reverence for the soldierly qualities they displayed on many a 
well-fought battle-field. I hope the day will come when their swords 
and ours will be crossed over many a doonvav of our children, who 



314 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

will remember the glory of their ancestors with pride. The high qual- 
ities displayed in that conflict now belong to the whole Nation. Let 
them be consecrated to the Union and its future peace and glory. I 
shall hail that consecration as a pledge and symbol of our perpetuity. 

But there was a class of men referred to in the speech of the gentle- 
man yesterday from whom I have never yet gained the christian grace 
necessary to say the same thing. The gentleman said that amid the 
thunder of battle, through its dun smoke, and above its roar he heard 
a voice from this side, saying, "Brothers, come." I do not know 
whether he meant the same thing, but I heard that voice behind us. I 
heard that voice, and I recollect that I sent one of those who uttered it 
through our lines — a voice owned by Vallandigham. [Laughter.] 
General Scott said, in the early days of the war, "When this war is 
over, it will require all the moral and physical power of the government 
to restrain the rage and fury of the non-combatants." [Laughter.] 
It was that non-combatant voice behind us that cried "halloo!" to the 
other side; that always gave cheer and encouragement to the enemy in 
our hour of darkness. I have never forgotten and have not yet forgiv- 
en those Democrats of the North whose hearts were not warmed by 
the grand inspiration of the Union, but who stood back finding fault, 
always crying disaster, rejoicing at our defeat, never glorying in our 
victory. If these are the voices the gentleman heard, I am sorry he is 
united with those who uttered them. 

But to those most noble men, Democrats and Republicans, who to- 
gether fought for the Union, I commend all the lessons of charity that 
the wisest and most beneficent men have taught. 

I join you all in every aspiration that you may express to stay in this 
Union, to heal its wounds, to increase its glory, and to forget the evils 
and bitterness of the past; but do not, for the sake of three hundred 
thousand heroic men who, maimed and bruised, drag out their weary 
lives, many of them carrying in their hearts horrible memories of what 
they suffered in the prison-pen — do not ask us to vote to put back into 
power that man who was the cause of their suffering — that man still 
unaneled, unshrived, unforgiven, undefended. [Great applause.] 

There is not in our history an instance of a more ef- 
fective reply than this; cahn, strong, clear, forcible, mov- 



THE FORTY-FOURTH CONGRESS, 315 

ing with inexorable certainty and irresistible power, it cut 
and swept the field clean. On the following day Mr. 
Blaine made one of his forceful and vigorous speeches, and 
others took part in the debate. The great antagonists 
did not again appear in it nor was there even an attempt 
to reply to Garfield. The Democrats never recovered 
from the effects of his speech. Its demolition of their case 
was final. It seemed to fix ineffaceably on the brow of 
the fallen chief the charges made upon him. It doubtless 
added something to the fame of Mr. Garfield. Perhaps, 
more correctly speaking, it confirmed and sustained it. 

Hill took notes of his speech but the Democrats re- 
fused to permit him to attempt to reply. Quietly and 
by common consent the amnesty bill was permitted to 
drop and that was its end. The great journals de- 
clared that Garfield had drawn the lightning from the 
clouds and people might repose in safety. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE DEMOCRACY NOT TO BE TRUSTED. 

Lamar's Speech. — Reply to Lamar. — Its Effect. — Leadership. 

The first session of the Forty-fourth congress under 
Democratic management ran past all reasonable bounds. 
May, always lovely on the Potomac, gave her roses and 
foliage to warm delicious June, and she handed them on 
to hot and glowing July, which ran in to fiery August. 
The locust was piping his note — fierce song of the in- 
tense heart of summer, and yet there congress remained 
as if fixed. The capitol's huge iron dome under 
the unmitigable heat swayed to and fro many feet 
each day. The porticos all along the eastern front 
were a burning waste of marble and wide Pennsylvania 
avenue a heated desert. The poor congressman, as 
he toiled sweating up the western approach to the 
house, lingered in the shade of what, under the 
severe taste of Fred Law Olmstead had ceased to 
be a forest, paused at the top of the turfy terrace to 
, gather breath and heart, to pass the expanse of 
burning stone ere he could gam the cool slumberous soli- 
tude of the now all but deserted capitol. Everybody else 
had gone ; the faltering blundering of the unruling ma- 
jority kept him. The convention in his district was near 
and he afar. It was 1876. The great conventions had 
316 



THE DEMOCRACY NOT TO BE TRUSTED. 317 

come and gone. Yet he lingered. He passed the stone 
pool of crystal water, looked enviously at the lazy gold 
fish, and sweltered on. It was the centennial ; a hundred 
years had elapsed and he was still there, and likely to re- 
main. All the nations were at Philadelphia, all the re- 
mote regions ; Siam, Orange Free State, Australia and 
the far-off islands of lonely seas, and he was still at Wash- 
ington, and there he remained till the mortal fifteenth of 
August; solaced only by the fresh flocks of the peo- 
ple who,on their way to or from Philadelphia, visited the 
capital. 

The second of that latest of months became a day 
of memories in the wing of the huge pile nearest the Po- 
tomac. Long and arduous preparations had been made 
for it. It was there to be demonstrated by clear, lumin- 
ous, unanswerable showing that it was absolutely neces- 
sary for the well-being of the Republic that the young and 
tender power of the Democratic party should be extended, 
consolidated and made permanent by the election of Mr. 
Tilden and the re-election to the house of the present 
majority. Lucius Q. C. Lamar, of Mississippi, great- 
est of rhetorical magicians, was to work the wonder in the 
sympathizing admiring presence of the two houses, and 
the sweltering crowd the occasion would conjure to the 
capitol, even in August. 

A great deal more than a rhetorician is Mr. Lamar. 
He has one of the subtlest and most acute minds of the 
Nation with a skill for gathering shades of difference, gar- 
nering up nice distinctions, and nursing and cherishing 
them, till their sum magnified by his ingenuity may 



3l8 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

seem very great. He had a strong, vigorous grasp, 
rare power of presentation, and an eloquence passing 
that of ahnost every man of the houses. All his rare 
powers were to be put forth for the great task of persuad- 
ing the Republic that her only safety was in now giving 
herself unreservedly in to the arms of those w'ho for 
lack of strength had not strangled her when last won to 
their embrace. It was known that Mr. Lamar had long 
labored with this problem. It was even said that the 
speech had been written, read over and dver to the wise 
ones, changed, modified, polished and shaded off to nice 
perfection of argument and a beautiful seeming of truth. 
It was prudently deemed best to withhold it till the latest 
days of the delaying session — leaving only time to get it 
out for distribution ere the departure of the members, so 
as to insure no effective answer, should any dismayed 
Republican have the hardihood to attempt it. 

It was not to be a rhetorical or eloquent effort, but 
calm, clear, forceful, and strong by inherent might, so 
wrought and compacted as to defy successful assault. 
Then unanswered — unanswerable, it was to be launched 
upon the thoughtful, reading, reflecting North. 

After much study, I believe Mr. Lamar's greater re- 
viewer has more luminously stated the propositions of 
the speech than he did himself. He began with pathet- 
ically deploring the evils of party, and showed the Amer- 
ican people how sadly weary they were of them. That, 
superior to party, they have the great purpose to free the 
country from the corruptions and manifold errors and 
e\-ils of legislation and administration. These are: A 



THE DEMOCRACY NOT TO BE TRUSTED. 319 

general corruption of administrative government; a de- 
plorable state of the civil service, sustained by one hun- 
dred thousand office-holders, and surrounded by one 
hundred thousand expectants of office. This was the 
major premise. 

The minor, but for his purpose, more important in the 
pending canvass, the Republican party was incapable 
of working out the great reforms the people desired. 
The conclusion, that the Democratic party, in this syl- 
logistic exigency, must be brought into full power at the 
approaching election. Apprehensive that the people 
might feel a natural hesitancy at again trusting the De- 
mocracy, he met that state of mind. He said there 
need be no fear that the South, lately in rebelHon, would 
again control the government. They were prostrated; 
their institutions overthrown, their industries broken 
down, in which condition they could not again be placed 
at the head. Finally, the South had not united with the 
Democracy from choice, but from necessity, for pro- 
tection. There need be no fear that the negroes will not 
be cared for; the South understands and appreciates 
them, and her people are on such terms of affection and 
friendship with them, and are in a much better condition 
to help them up and along than folk at a distance and 
ignorant of them can be. The South accepts the results 
of the war. 

These propositions he wrought out and worked up 
with almost infinite care and skill, patiently clearing the 
ground, placing his foundation and building up his 
structure, every stone of which was finished and pol- 



320 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

ished, and the whole in modest, severe outUnes, and 
with absence of ornament. His language, chaste and 
simple ; the argument logical, where logic could serve ; 
always plausible and persuasive; a total absence of arro- 
gance; no taunt; no unpleasant remembrance of the past; 
no word which could create apprehension of the future, 
were breathed to annoy or disturb a sensitive ear. Calm, 
peaceful, serene, sweet, tender — and so he worked it out. 
When his first hour expired, Mr. Garfield arose and 
hoped he would be allowed the amplest time to complete 
his presentation of the whole subject, which, by the way, 
he forgot to reciprocate two days later. 

There was an immense concourse. Many of the 
senators were present. He did not speak for immediate . 
applause, but with rare skill, polishing and fitting each 
stone, and nicely adjusting it to its proper place, he 
finished the entire structure. His friends and party, 
lovers and countVymen could not repress the gratifi- 
cation and admiration they felt, and greeted him with 
applause. They gathered around with congratulations. 
The great impregnable work was done. Garfield and 
Hoar might assault it if they would, it was safe. A page 
brought a subscription paper, and they placed their 
names to it, for tens of thousands, for immediate circula- 
tion. These would be multiplied for the campaign to 
hundreds of thousands, and do its work. 

It was a very great performance, and very dangerous 
to the Republicans. They knew and felt the peril. No 
other Democrat in congress could have done the work so 
well. Gordon, nor Hill, nor Thurman, nor Bayard, 



THE DEMOCRACY NOT TO BE TRUSTED. 32 1 

nor Voorhees, no one of them. Nor was there but one 
man who could answer it. 

When it began to unfold, and its quality seen and felt, 
Republicans from all parts of the house gathered around 
Garfield's desk, where he sat calmly taking notes, with 
his fair blond face, and clear, blue eyes, occasionally 
lifted to the rapt face of the magic conjurer of miracles. 
One would like to have watched the processes of impres- 
sion and thought, received and going on, in that vast 
brain, as the charm of speech proceeded. There was a 
lively movement in all parts, under the dome, little imps 
hurrying here and there, awakening all the memories, 
and there never was a better trained or more faithful 
band. All the perceptions, with their microscopes and 
magnifiers, all the comparers with their infinitude of tests 
and detections, the reflectors, the judgments, with the 
dialectics, would be marshalled later, and there was 
ample room and much need for them all. This was not 
the stormy field of the amnesty battle royal, fought on 
the lower earth, on the plain of common apprehension, 
but on the upper heights, where mists gathered, in the 
neighborhood of the clouds, which had to be blown away 
by the winds of mighty wings, or rarefied with sun heat 
and light. 

No man of the house thought of any one to do this, 
but Garfield and the Republicans gathered about him as 
men will, with all manner of wise and other suggestion, 
which he heard without heeding, as such men do, though 
he courteously received it all. They were wont to run 
to him, like the worsted side, to their one big boy — bigger 



322 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

and braver and stronger than any other boy — than all the 
boys on the other side, whom he had always overthrown, 
and they went up to clap him on the shoulder, and say 
"Old fellow — I don't know — you'll have a d — 1 of a tus- 
sle! but I'll risk you." And this is his leadership — never 
clearly beyond the big, never overthrown boy, to be put 
forward by the boys on his side, all unconscious that he 
is the big boy, and should lead by right of born king- 
liness, and not by big-boyism, waiting to be pushed for- 
ward. 

There was not time to prepare and answer such work, 
and the Republicans went home anxious and foreboding. 

Garfield was ready the next morning. Something in 
the house prevented the calling up of the bill to transfer 
Indian affairs from the Interior to the War department, 
which was under consideration when this great struggle 
came off. On the next — the fourth of August — it was 
called up. The wires announced that Garfield would 
answer Lamar, and men came from the Exposition to 
hear him. 

He arose in a thronged house, with anxious crowds 
about him, to his task. Like the effort to which it re- 
sponded, it was calm, temperate and elevated, not 
abounding in brilliant, quotable passages. Its strength 
can only be estimated by a calm study after a thorough 
mastery of its predecessor. I feel that I cannot translate 
its full significance to my reader, nor fully my conception 
of its author. 

Regretting that Lamar's speech had not appeared in 
the Congressional Recora (it was withheld till after Gar- 



THE DEMOCRACY NOT TO BE TRUSTED. 



323 



field's reply), he proceeded to state its propositions, the 
substance of which are already given. 
He carries the statement further: 

He emphasizes the statement that the South cheerfully accepts the 
results of the war; and admits that much good has been achieved by 
the Republican party which ought to be preserved. I was gratified to 
hear the gentleman speak of Lincoln as "the illustrious author of the 
great act of emancipation." That admission will be welcomed ever}'- 
where by those who believe in the justice and wisdom of that great act. 
While speaking of the condition of the South and its wants.he deplores 
two evils which afflict that portion of our country: First, Federal 
supervision; and second, negro ascendancy in its political affairs. In 
that connection, it will be remembered, he quoted from John Stuart 
Mill and from Gibbon; the one to show that the most deplorable form 
of government is where the slave governs; and from the other to show 
the evils of a government which is in alien hands. The gentleman 
represented the South as suffering the composite evils depicted by both 
these great writers. 

Then comes this re-statement, a reference to himself, 
followed by a blow in the fourth paragraph : 

Now, I have stated — of course ver)' briefly, but I hope with entire 
fairness — the scope of the very able speech to which we listened. In a 
word, it is this: The Republican party is oppressing the South; negro 
suffrage is a grievous evil; there are serious corruptions in public affairs 
and the national legislation and administration; the civil service of the 
country especially needs great and radical reform ; and, therefore, the 
Democratic party ought to be placed in control of the government at 
this time, by the election of Tilden and Hendricks. 

It has not been my habit, and is not my desire, to discuss mere party 
politics in this great legislative forum. And I shall do so now only so 
far as a fair review of the gentleman's speech requires. My remarks 
shall be responsive to his; and I shall discuss party history and party 
policy only as the policy of his speech leads into that domain. 

From most of the premises of the gentleman^ as matters of fiict and 
history-, I dissent; some of them are undoubtedly correct. But, for 



324 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

the sake of argument only, admitting that all his premises are correct, 
I deny that his conclusion is warranted by his premises; and, before I 
close, I shall attempt to show that the good he seeks cannot be secured 
by the ascendancy of the Democratic party at this time. 

Before entering upon tliat field, however, I must notice this remark- 
able omission in the logic of his speech. Although he did state that 
the country might consider itself free from some of the dangers which 
are apprehended as the result of Democratic ascendancy, he did not, 
as I remember, by any word attempt to prove the fitness of the 
Democracy as a political organization to accomplish the reforms which 
he so much desires; and without that affirmative proof of fitness, his 
argument is necessarily an absolute failure. 

In his rapid generalization he pauses for this : 

I share all that gentleman's aspirations for peace, for good govern- 
ment at the South; and I believe I can safely assure him that the great 
majority of the Nation shares the same aspirations. But he will allow 
me to say that he has not fully stated the elements of the great 
problem to be solved by the statesmanship of to-day. The actual field 
is much broader than the view he has taken. And before we can agree 
that the remedy he proposes is an adequate one, we must take in the 
whole field, comprehend all the conditions of the problem, and then 
see if his remedy is sufficient. The change he proposes is not like the 
ordinary change of a ministry in England when the government is de- 
feated on a tax bill or some routine measure of legislation. He pro- 
poses to turn over the custody and management of the government to 
a party which has persistently and with the greatest bitterness resisted 
all of the great changes within the last fifteen years, changes which 
were the necessary results of a vast revolution — a revolution in national 
policy, in social and political ideas — a revolution whose causes were not 
the work of a day nor a year, but of generations and centuries. The 
scope and character of that mighty revolution must form the basis of 
our judgment when we inquire whether such a change as he proposes 
is safe and wise. 

He then resumes his survey of the situation, and asks 
these sphinx questions: 



THE DEMOCRACY NOT TO BE TRUSTED. 325 

I ask the gentleman in all plainness of speech, and yet in all kindness, 
is he correct in his statement that the conquered party accept the re- 
sults of the war? Even if they do I remind the gentleman that accept 
is not a very strong word. I go further. I ask him if the Democratic 
party have adopted the results of the war? Is it not asking too much 
of human nature to e.xpect such unparalleled changes to be not only 
accepted, but, in so short a time, adopted by men of strong and inde- 
pendent opinions? 

The antagonisms which gave rise to the war and grew out of it, were 
not born in a day, nor can they vanish in a night. 

Mr. Chairman: Great ideas travel slowly, and for a time noiselessly as 
the gods whose feet were shod with wool. Our war of independence 
was a war of ideas — ideas evolved out of two hundred years of slow 
and silent growth. When, one hundred years ago, our fathers an- 
nounced as self-evident truths the declaration that all men are created 
equal, and the only just power of governments is derived from the con- 
sent of the governed, they uttered a doctrine that no nation had ever 
adopted, that no one kingdom on the earth then believed. Yet to our 
fathers it was so plain that they would not debate it. They announced 
it as a truth "self-evident." 

The theme of the second paragraph he pursues in an 
elevated strain, and returns to the present condition of 
things. The matter was too great for relief by a mere 
change of administration. 

Then he rapidly traces the origin of the civilization 
from the parent English stock, one planted on the James, 
the other at Plymouth, until their final great conflict; 
quoted the strong and bitter things said by the represent- 
atives of Mississippi, in the old debates, crowned with 
threats of the dissolution of the Union; finally, from Mr. 
Lamar himself in the house in 1858: 

"I was on the floor of the senate when your great leader, William 
H. Seward, announced that startling programme of anti-slavery senti- . 
ment and action. * * And, sir, in his e.xultation he exclaimed 



326 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

—for I heard him myself— that he hoped to see the day when there 
would not be the foot-print of a single slave upon this continent. 
And when he uttered this atrocious sentiment, his form seemed to 
dilate, his pale, thin face, furrowed by the lines of thought and evil 
passions, kindled with malignant triumph, and his eye glowed and 
glared upon southern senators as though the fires of hell were burning 
in his heart." 

I have read this passage to mark the height to which the antagonism 
had risen in 1859. And this passage enables us to measure the prog- 
ress he has since rnade. 

I mark it here as one of the notable signs of the time, that the gulf 
which intervenes between the position then occupied by the gentleman 
from Mississippi and the position he occupies to-day, is so deep, so 
vast, that it indicates a progress worthy of all praise. I congratulated 
him and the country that in so short a time so great a change has been 
possible. 

Now, I ask the gentleman if he is quite sure, as a matter of fact, 
that the Democratic party, its southern as well as its northern wing, 
have followed his own illustrious and worthy example in the vast prog- 
ress he has made since 1859? He assures us that the transformation 
has been so complete that the Nation can safely trust all the most pre- 
cious fruits of the war in the hands of that party who stood with him 
in 1859. If that be true, I rejoice at it with all my heart; but the gen- 
tleman must pardon me if I ask him to assist my wavering faith by 
some evidence, some consoling proofs. When did the great transform- 
ation take place ? Certainly not within two years after the delivery of 
the speech I have quoted; for two years from that time, the contest 
had risen much higher. It had risen to the point of open, terrible and 
determined war. Did the change come during the war? O, no; lor 
in the four terrible years ending in 1865, every resource of courage and 
power that the Southern States could muster was employed, not only 
to save slavery, but to destroy the Union. So the transformation had 
not occurred in 1865. When did it occur? Aid our anxious inquiry, 
for the Nation ought to be sure that the great change has occurred 
before it can safely trust its destinies to the Democratic party. Did it 
occur in the first epoch of reconstruction— the two years immediately 
following the war? During that period the attempt was made to restore 



THE DEMOCRACY NOT TO BE TRUSTED. 327 

governments in the South on the basis of the white vote. Military 
control was held generally; but the white population of the Southern 
States were invited to elect their own legislatures and establish provis- 
ional governments. 

In the laws, covering a period of two and a half years, 1865, 1866, 
and a portion of 1867, enacted by those legislatures, we ought to find 
proof of the transformation, if it had then occurred. What do we 
find? What we should naturally e.xpect: that a people, accustomed to 
the domination of slavery, re-enacted in almost all of the Southern 
States, and notably in the States of Mississippi and Louisiana, laws 
limiting and restricting the liberty of the colored man; vagrant laws 
and peonage laws, whereby negroes were sold at auction for the pay- 
ment of a paltry tax or fine, and held in a slavery as real as the slavery 
of other days. I believe that this was true of nearly all of the South- 
em States; so that the experiment of allowing the white population of 
the South to adjust that very question proved a frightful failure; and 
then it was that the national congress intervened. They proposed an 
act of reconstruction, an act which became a law on the 2d of March, 
1867. 

And what was that act? Gentlemen of the South, you are too 
deeply schooled in philosophy to take any umbrage at what I shall now 
say, for I am dealing only with historj'. Vou must know, and certainly 
do know, that the great body of the Nation which had carried the war 
to triumph and success, knew that the eleven States that had opposed 
the Union had plunged their people into crime; acrimeset down in the 
law — a law signed by President Washington — at the very top of the 
catalogue of crimes; the crime of treason and all that follows it. You 
certainly know that, under that law, every man who voluntarily took 
up arms against the Union could have been tried, convicted and 
hanged, as a traitor to his country. But I call your attention to the 
fact that the conquering Nation said, in this great work of reconstruc- 
tion, "We will do nothing for revenge, everything for permanent 
peace;" and you know there never was a trial for treason in this coun- 
try during the whole of the struggle nor after it: no man was executed 
for treason; no man was tried. There was no expatriation, no exile, 
no confiscation after the war. The only revenge which the conquering 
Nation gratified was this: In saying to the South, "You may come 



328 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD, 

back to your full place in the Union when you do these things: join 
with the other States in putting into the constitution a provision that 
the national debt shall never be repudiated; that your rebel war debt 
shall never be paid; and that all men, without regard to race or color, 
shall stand equal before the law; not in suffrage, but in civil rights; 
that these great guarantees of liberty and public faith shall be lifted 
above the reach of political parties, above the legislation of States, 
above the legislation of congress, and shall be set in the serene firma- 
ment of the constitution, to shine as lights forever and forever. And 
under that equal sky, under the light of that equal sun, all men, of 
whatever race or color, shall stand equal before the law." 

That was the plan of reconstruction offered to those who had been in 
rebellion, offered by a generous and brave Nation; and I challenge the 
world to show an act of equal generosity to a conquered people. What 
answer did it meet? By the advice of Andrew Johnson, a bad adviser, 
backed by the advice of the northern Democracy, a still worse adviser, 
ten of the eleven States lately in rebellion contemptuously rejected the 
plan of reconstruction embraced in the fourteenth amendment of the 
constitution. They would have none of it; they had been invited by 
their northern allies to stand out, and w-ere told that when the Democ- 
racy came into power they should be permitted to come back to their 
places without guarantees or conditions. 

This brings us to 1868. Had the transformation occurred then? 
For remember, gentlemen, I am searching for the date of the great 
transformation similar to that which has taken place in the gentleman 
from Mississippi. We do not find it in 1868. On the contrary, in 
that year we find Frank P. Blair, of Missouri, writing these words, 
which, a few days after they were written, gave him the nomination for 
the vice-presidency on the Democratic ticket: 

"There is but one way to restore government and the constitution; 
and that is for the President elect to declare all these acts — " 
and the constitutional amendment with them, "null and void, compel 
the army to undo its usurpations at the South, and disperse the 
carpet-bag State governments and allow the white people to re-or- 
ganize their own governments and elect their senators and represen- 
tatives." 

Because lie wrote that letter he was nominated for vice-president by 



THE DEMOCRACY NOT TO BE TRUSTED. 329 

the Democratic party. Therefore, as late as July, 1868, the transform- 
ation had not occurred. 

Had it occurred in 1872? In 1871 and 1872 all the amendments of 
the constitution had been adopted, against the stubborn resistance of 
the northern and southern Democracy. I call you to witness that, with 
the exception of three or four Democratic representatives who voted 
for the abolition of slavery, the three great amendments, the thirteenth, 
the fourteenth, and the fifteenth, met the determined and united oppo- 
sition of the Democracy of this country. Each of the amendments 
now so praised by the gentleman, was adopted against the whole weight 
of your resistance. And two years after the adoption of the last 
amendment, in many of your State platforms they were declared to 
be null and void. 

In 1871 and 1872 occurred throughout the South those dreadful 
scenes enacted by the Ku-klux organization, of which I will say only 
this, that a man facile princeps among the Democrats of the slave- 
holding States, Reverdy Johnson, who was sent down to defend those 
who were indicted for their crimes, held up his hands in horror at the 
shocking barbarities that had been perpetrated by his clients upon ne- 
gro citizens. I refer to the evidence of that eminent man, as a suffi- 
cient proof of the character of that great conspiracy against the free- 
dom of the colored race. So the transformation had not come in the 
days of Ku-klux of 1871 and 1872. 

Had it come in 1873 ^"^^ ^'i^ beginning of 1874? Had it come in the 
State of Mississippi? Had it come in one quarter of the States lately 
in rebellion? Here is a report from an honorable committee of this 
house, signed by two gentlemen who are still members — Mr. Conger 
and Mr. Hurlbut — a report made as late as December, 1874, in which 
there is disclosed, by innumerable witnesses, the proof that the White- 
line organization, an armed military organization formed within the 
Democratic party, had leagued themselves together to prevent the en- 
joyment of suffrage and equal rights by the colored men of the South. 
Without detaining the house to read them now, I will quote two or 
three paragraphs from that report, dated December 14, 1874, and 
printed house document number two hundred and si.\ty-five. 

Here follow copious extracts showing the organization 



330 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

of the \Miite-line. So the deformed had not been trans- 
formed in 1S74. 

He followed this course with frequent proofs, making 
extracts from date to date, to the very present, showing 
that if the wonderful regeneration had taken place, it 
had been concealed beyond the reach of discovery. 

Mr. Chairman. After the facts I have cited, am I not warranted in 
raising a grave doubt whether the transformation occurred at all except 
in a few patriotic and pjiilosophic minds? The light gleams first on 
the mountain peaks; but shadows and darkness linger in the valley. It 
is in the valley masses of those lately in rebellion that the light of this 
beautiful philosophy, which I honor, has not penetrated. Is it safer to 
withhold from them the custody and supreme control of the precious 
treasures of the Republic until the midday sun of liberty, justice, and 
equal laws, shall shine upon them with unclouded ray? 

In view of all the facts, considering the centuries of influence that 
brought on the great struggle, is it not reasonable to suppose that it 
will require yet more time to effect the great transformation ? 

« » * * ♦ « * 

I am compelled to yield space to all of this : 

The gentleman from Mississippi [Mr. Lamar] says there is no possi- 
bility that the South will again control national affairs, if the Democ- 
racy be placed again in power. How is this? We are told that the 
South will vote as a unit for Tilden and Hendricks. Suppose those gen- 
tlemen also carry New York and Indiana. Does the gentleman believe 
that a northern minority of the Democracy will control the administra- 
tion ? Impossible ! But if they did, would it better the case ? 

Let me put the question in another form. Suppose, gentlemen of 
the South, you had won the victory in the war; that you had captured 
Washington, and Gettysburg, and Philadelphia, and New York; and 
we of the North, defeated and conquered, had lain prostrate at your 
feet. Do you believe that by this time you would be ready and willing 
to intrust tous— our Garrisons, our Phillippses, and our Wades, and the 
great array of those who were the leaders of our thought — to intrust to 
us the fruits of your victory, the enforcement of your doctrines of State 



THE DEMOCRACY NOT TO BE TRUSTED. 33 1 

sovereignty and the work of extending the domain of slavery? Do 
you think so? And if not, will you not pardon us when we tell you 
that we are not quite ready to trust the precious results of the Nation's 
victory in your hands? Let it be constantly borne in mind that I am 
not debating a question of equal rights and privileges within the Union, 
but whether those who so lately sought to destroy it ought to be chosen 
to control its destiny for the next four years. 

I hope my public life has given proof that I do not cherish a spirit 
of malice or bitterness toward the South. Perhaps they will say I have 
no right to advise them; but at the risk of being considered impertinent, 
I will express my conviction that the bane of southern people, for the 
last twenty-five years, has been that they have trusted the ad\ice of the 
Democratic party. The very remedy which the gentleman from 
Mississippi [Mr. Lamar] offers for the ills of his people, has been and 
still is their bane. The Democratic party has been the evil genius of 
the South in all these years. They yielded their own consciences to 
you on the slavery question, and led you to believe that the North 
would always yield. They made you believe that we would not fight 
to save the Union. They made you believe that if we ever dared to 
cross the Potomac or Ohio, to put down your rebellion, we could only 
do so across the dead bodies of many hundred thousands of northern 
Democrats. They made you believe that the war would begin in the 
streets of our northern cities; that we were a community of shop- 
keepers, of sordid money-getters, and would not stand against your 
fiery chivalry. You thought us cold, slow, lethargic; and in some re- 
spects we are. There are some differences between us that spring 
from origin and influences of climate— differences not unlike the descrip- 
tion of the poet, that — 

Bright and fierce and fickle is the South; 

And dark and true and tender is the North; 
differences that kept us from a good understanding. 

You thought that our coldness, our slowness, indicated a lack of 
spirit and patriotism, and you were encouraged in that belief by most 
of the northern Democracy; but not by all. They warned you at 
Charleston in i860. 

And when the great hour struck, there were many noble Democrats 
in the North, who lifted the flag of the Union far above the flag of party ; 



332 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

but there was a residuum of Democracy, called in the slang of the time 
"copperheads," who were your evil genius from the beginning of the 
war till its close, and ever since. Some of them sat in these seats, and 
never rejoiced when we won a victory, and never grieved when we lost 
one. They were the men who sent their Vallandighams to give counsel 
and encouragement to your rebellion and to buoy you up with false 
hope, that at last you would conquer by the aid of their treachery. I 
honor you, gentlemen of the South, ten thousand times more than I 
honor such Democrats of the North. 

I said they were your evil genius. Why, in 1-864, when we were al- 
most at the culminating point of the war, their Vallandighams and Til- 
dens (and both of these men were on the committee of resolutions) ut- 
tered the declaration, as the voice of the Democracy, that the experi- 
ment of war to preserve the Union was a failure, and that hostilities 
should cease. They asked us to sound the recall on our bugles, to call 
our conquering armies back from the contest, and trust to their machina- 
tions to save their party at the e.xpense of a broken and ruined country. 
Brave soldiers of the lost cause, did you not, even in that hour of peril, 
in your hearts loathe them with supremest scorn ? But for their 
treachery at Chicago, the war might have ended and a hundred thou- 
sand precious lives been saved. But your evil genius pursued you, and 
the war went on. And later, when you would have accepted the con- 
stitutional amendment and restoration without universal suffrage, the 
same evil genius held you back. In 1868 it still deceived you. In 1872 
it led you into 

A gulf profound as that Serbonian bog 
Betwixt Damiataand Mount Casius old, 
Where armies whole have sunk. 

Let not the eloquence of the gentleman from Mississippi [Mr. Lamar] 
lure you again to its brink. 

FITNESS OF THE DEMOCRACY TO RULE. 

Mr. Chairman. It is now time to inquire as to the fitness ot this Demo- 
cratic party to take control of our great Nation and its vast and impor- 
tant interests for the next four years. I put the question to the gentle- 
man from Mississippi [Mr. Lamar] what has the Democratic party done 
to merit that great trust ? He tried to show in what respects it would not 
be dangerous. I ask him to show in what it would be safe. I affirm, 



THE DEMOCRACY NOT TO BE TRUSTED. 333 

and I believe I do not misrepresent the great Democratic party, that in 
the last sixteen years they have not advanced one great national idea 
that is not to-day exploded and as dead as Julius Cassar. And if any 
Democrat here will rise and name a great national doctrine his party 
has advanced, within that time, that is now alive and believed in, I will 
yield to hear him. [Applause.] In default of an answer, I will attempt 

to prove my negative. 

What were the great central doctrines of the Democratic party in the 
presidential struggle of i860? The followers of Breckenridge said 
slavery had a right to go wherever the constitution goes. Do you be- 
lieve that to-day ? Is there a man on this continent that holds that doc- 
trine to-day ? Not one. That doctrine is dead and buried. The other 
wing of the Democracy held that slavery might be established in the 
Territories if the people wanted it. Does anybody ho'd that doctrine 
to-day ? Dead, absolutely dead ! 

Come down to 1864. Your party, under the lead of Tilden and Val- 
landigham, declared the experiment of war to save the Union was a 
failure. Do you believe that doctrine to-day ? That doctrine was shot 
to death by the guns of Farragut at Mobile, and driven, in a tempest of 
fire, from the valley of the Shenandoah, by Sheridan less than a month 
after its birth at Chicago. 

Come down to 1868. You declared the constitutional amendment 
revolutionary and void. Does any man on this floor say so to-day ? If 
so, let him rise and declare it. 

Do you believe in the doctrine of the Broadhead letter of 1868, that 
the so-called constitutional amendments should be disregarded ? No; 
the gentleman from Mississippi accepts the results of the war ! The 
Democratic doctrine of 1868 is dead ! 

I walk across that Democratic campaign-ground as in a graveyard. 
Under my feet resound the hollow echoes of the dead. There lies 
slavery, a black marble column at the head of its grave, on which I 
read: Died in the flames of the civil war; loved in its lite; lamented in 
its death; followed to its bier by its only mourner, the Democratic 
party, but dead ! And here is a double grave: Sacred to the memory 
of squatter sovereignty. Died in the campaign of i860. On the re- 
verse side: Sacred to the memory of Dred Scoit and the Breckenridge 
doctrine. Both dead at the hands of Abraham Lincoln! And here a 



334 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

monument of brimstone: Sacred to the memory of the rebellion; 
the war against it is a failure; Tildc7i et Vallandigham feccrunt, A. 
D. 1864. Dead on the field of battle; shot to death by the million 
guns of the Republic. The doctrine of secession; of State sovereignty — 
dead! Expired in the flames of civil war, amid the blazing rafters of 
the Confederacy, except that the modern ^neas, fleeing out of the 
flames of that ruin, bears on his back another Anchises of State sover- 
eignty, and brings it here in the person of the honorable gentleman from 
the Appomattox district of Virginia, [Mr. Tucker.] [Laughter.] All 
else is dead. 

Now, gentlemen, are you sad, are you sorry for these deaths? Are 
you not glad that secession is dead? that slavery is dead? that squatter 
sovereignty is dead? that the doctrine of the failure of the war is 
dead? Then you are glad that you were out-voted in i860, in 1864, in 
1868, and in 1872. If you have tears to shed over these losses, shed 
them in the grave-yard, but not in this house of living men. I know 
that many a southern man rejoices that these issues are dead. The 
gentleman from Mississippi [Mr. Lamar] has clothed his joy with 
eloquence. 

Now, gentlemen, if you yourseh es are glad thatyou have suffered de- 
feat during the last sixteen years, will you not be equally glad when you 
suffer defeat next November? [Laughter.] But pardon that remark; 
I regret it; I would use no bravado. 

Then he turned to the fitness of the Republican party 
to bear further rule. It was a noble vindication. He 
did not content himself with a glowing bit of declama- 
tion. He never declaims j he never denounces. He 
does not descend to sarcasm or indulge in invective. 
He is too full of thought — practical thought; of high, 
great thought, to waste time and breath on what, after 
all, was no thought, and when it has evaporated leaves a 
solid of nothing. Nor did he refer to the service of the 
great rescue, but he arrayed the less conspicuous work 
and service since, in a catalogue of measures and la- 



THE DEMOCRACY NOT TO BE TRUSTED. 335 

bors, with date and circumstances. The rest of the 
speech is an arsenal, whence the campaigner may draw 
his weapons, and the thoughtful man may find the means 
of forming an estim^e of the character and capacity of 
the Republicans to rule, and judge of the propriety of 
continuing them in power. I cannot give it. There is 
too much of General Garfield for a book. Every part 
of him is too valuable to be left out, and the omitted 
matter would make the distinction of half-a-dozen con- 
spicuous men, and leave him unreduced to their class 
and size. 

No single work of any man in congress, in the later 
of years, was ever of such party service as this. It was 
more. Like the great answer to Hill, it went out to en- 
lighten, with a real, calm light, rising above that as its 
themes were more elevated; it illuminated the whole field 
of practical politics, with here and there a real going up 
of a calm, great mind, familiar with high thought, borne 
on by the inspiration and impulse of the purest and 
loftiest patriotism, finding its abode and strength in a 
calm, lofty, and great soul. 

Familiar — too familiar were the Republicans with Gar- 
field and his speeches, to appreciate him or it at their 
value, yet the effort advanced even him in their estimate 
of values. They crowded about him, subscribed for 
one hundred thousand of the speech, and one million 
were issued for the campaign, as there were of his and 
Blaine's amnesty speeches. 

Lamar congratulated him and went away pensive. 
His great speech was answered, overwhelmed, lost. It is 



336 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

said that more of Garfield's speeches were used in Mississ- 
ippi than there were of his. He walked solitarily away 
to the senate, accompanied with his sense of failure — no, 
not of failure. He did not fail, but there was a greater, 
a stronger and higher. Miltiades sculptured pillars. 

Funny are the freaks of fortune which play pranks 
with politicians as with others. Boutwell was sent from 
the treasury department to the senate. Lot Morrell did 
not care to contest his seat in the senate with Blaine, at 
the approaching election in Maine. Mr. Richardson, 
Boutwell's successor, was transferred to the court of 
claims for life. Mr. Morrell vacated his seat in 
the senate just before his term would end, and Mr. 
Blaine, like Eve, "nothing loath,"' took his shin- 
ing way through the bronze portal of the senate, to- 
ward which all representative eyes are said longingly 
to turn. The speakership fell vacant by the death of 
INIr. Kerr, and at the election the Republicans, without 
formal caucus, cast their unanimous vote for Garfield 
for speaker, as they did at the Forty-fifth and Forty-sixth 
congresses. 

NEW ORLEANS AND "THE VISITING STATESMEN." 

On his return to Washington to resume his seat in the 
house in 1866, President Grant requested that he should 
proceed to New Orleans — region of bottomless mud, 
bottomless politics and bottomless men. He did not 
like it, hesitated, and went. There he took no part 
in any consultations, managements or schemes, if such 
there were. He offered to take the entire mass of the 
depositions concerning West FeUciana, collate, verify, 



THE DEMOCRACY NOT TO BE TRUSTED. 337 

and analyze them. This he did. The witnesses were 
at hand, and to each he re-read his or her deposition, 
and ascertained that it was voluntarily given as set down. 
His labors were of great service, and limited to this duty. 
His analysis was adopted by the commission. The sub- 
sequent Potter investigation charged no blame to his 
account. 



CHAPTER IV. 

ATTEMPTED REVOLUTION. 



The Electoral Commission. — Extra Session. — Great Speech. — Later 
Speeches and Replies. — Star\'ing the Government to Death. — End of 
Congressional Record. 

The weakest place in the structure of our government 
was developed by the presidential election of 1876, and 
probably the defects thus exposed never will be repaired 
until parties cease to regard them as a sort of final 
reserve in the future battles for supremacy in the Re- 
public. It never will be known which of the two candi- 
dates had the larger number of votes, cast in accordance 
with law. The means for ascertainment probably never 
existed. The method by which the controversy was 
finally ended, was rather the creation of a new way for 
an election, by which the present incumbent was chosen. 



33S LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

than a means of verifying and declaring the result of 
the popular suffrage. The returns actually received were 
the factors of the new canvass authorized by the exercise 
of an undefined power, used for determining results 
by the new college of suffragists. Constituted as the 
commission was, the result of its labors was never for a 
moment in doubt. The fairest mind of the most just 
man is nevertheless unconsciously deflected by the bias, 
which will control its judgment, of facts, where the scale 
vibrates so nearly balanced. So a lawyer will usually set- 
tle a new and doubtful question, as this bias inclines. In 
this case there was the greatest uncertainty as to the facts, 
below which was the painful question of the dubiety of 
the witnesses themselves. Each side began by thinking it 
self in the right; each looked for witnesses to prove its 
side, and came to the trial conscientiously believing it was 
right. Unfortunately there was no high, impartial tribu- 
nal; one was extemporized from the best men on each 
side respectively. For the guidance of the lawyers there 
were no precedents, or a priori rules or dicta. That 
the case was patiently and laboriously examined, with an 
individual determination on the part of the triers to reach 
the best attainable, just conclusion, there is no good 
reason to doubt. But one accustomed to observe the 
workings of the human mind under all conditions, could 
have had little doubt of the conclusion. There were 
eight Republicans to seven Democrats, and eight is prac- 
tically the larger number, and when the singular tact is 
remembered that there was not a Republican in the land 
who did not believe that Mr. Hayes was elected by the 



ATTEMPTED REVOLUTION. 



339 



popular vote, and not a Democrat was ever heard of 
who believed that he was; it is conclusive that the mental 
bias of all men resolved the doubts, alike of law as of 
fact, and so the case was disposed of — and rightfully, as 
it would have been the other way, had the division of the 
triers permitted it. 

On the twenty-fifth of January, 1877, the bill creating 
the commission was under consideration in the house, 
and Mr. Garfield made one of his masterly speeches 
against it. I cannot find space for it. He believed that 
the constitution already pointed out the method of ascer- 
taining and declaring the result of the popular vote. 
There are minds subtle, ingenious and able, which, caught 
by a new aspect or view of an old question, find it so al- 
luring that they search for reasons to establish it, and end 
by accepting it. His is not in the least of this cast. His 
interest may be excited, his curiosity piqued, but his mind 
is too broad, weighty and balanced to be taken by a spe- 
cious new thing. While his temperament is eager, the 
spirit radical, the intellect is catholic and conservative. 
There is no instance of his having for an instant mis- 
taken a meteor for a new planet. 

Nothwithstanding he spoke and voted against the 
measure, he was placed on the commission. 

The law provided for five members of the house in the 
new electoral college. By arrangement, the Democrats 
were to name three and the Republicans two. In the 
convention of the Republicans a gentleman observed that 
as to one of them no formal action could be had, as of 
course Mr. Garfield was the unanimous first choice, which 



340 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

was assented to, and then the convention proceeded to 
ballot for the second, and George Hoar was chosen as his 
colleague. 

Of Mr. Garfield's labors in the body to which he was 
thus elected I shall not speak at length. He delivered 
two opinions in the course of the discussion. In one of 
these he presented with his usual perspicuity, his view of 
the rights and duties of the States in the election of a 
President. The power to make the election was placed 
in the hands of the States, nor was there anywhere lodged 
a power to review and revise their doings in the premises. 
i\ll that could be done was to ascertain their action in a 
given case and give it effect. They declared what they 
had done, by their own properly attested voices, and no 
power existed to go back of their declaration. This must 
be the law. In support he quoted the singular case of 
Vermont, when the legislature resolved itself into a joint 
convention, by virtue of the constitution alone, and pro- 
ceeded to the necessary action. 

Many notable speeches were delivered by General Gar- 
field during the Forty-fifth congress. Among them one 
on " The Policy of Pacification and the Prosecutions in 
Louisiana," February 19th, 1878; on the "Army and the 
Public Peace," May 21, 1878; his tariff speech in reply 
to Randolph Tucker on the fourth of June following, 
referred to with his opinions on the subject, and many of 
lesser note. 

The Forty-fifth congress expired by constitutional lim- 
itation, and the Forty-sixth assembled eighteen days 
later, by proclamation of the President. The army was 



ATTEMPTED REVOLUTION. 34 1 

left unprovided for, and another large appropriation bill 
had failed. The bills appropriating forty-five million 
dollars had failed by the disagreeing votes of the houses. 
The senate had ceased to be Republican, and the house 
was Democratic by a greatly diminished majority. It 
will be remembered that there was a "rider" placed on 
the bill by the house, the effect of which was to prevent 
the use of the army to preserve the peace at the polls, 
on any Federal election, which the senate knocked off, 
and the disagreement was whether it should be re- 
mounted. I think that Mr. Garfield alway had a strong 
impression that this whole action was to produce an in- 
fluence upon Democratic views and prospects in refer- 
ence to the next Presidential election. Since 1876, the 
one animating, central idea of all that was said or thought 
on that matter by them, was the alleged fraud. If this 
continued, the inevitable consequence was the nomina- 
tion of Tilden. Something must be done to supplant 
this, by some other thing, leading in another direction, 
and this was the thing — a clamor against the enforcement 
of the election law of 1864. Its repeal was to be se- 
cured at any hazard, even to the refusal to provide for 
the army, which under it might be called upon by the 
United States marshals to preserve the peace at the elec- 
tions. It was a Kentucky scheme, patched up by Black- 
burn, Senators Beck, Thurman, and one or two Ohio 
men, and for its ultimate purpose the elevation of Thur- 
man to the post of candidate for the Democracy. When 
the army bill with its rider, was under discussion in the 
senate, both Thurman and Beck declared they never 



342 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

would pass an appropriation for the army until the elec- 
tion law was repealed. 

At the extra session the old bill was reported, and in 
committee of the whole the old rider was moved. By the 
rules of the house this was not in order. Springer was in 
the chair, and the Republicans consumed two days in de- 
bating the question. Of course Springer overruled the 
objection, the rider was received and the question was 
open for debate. Garfield had taken no part in the pre- 
liminary skirmish, and had not expected a conclusion that 
day, and was taken by surprise. He was without notes 
or memoranda. He sent a page for Attorney General 
Cushing's opinion, that the army could be used to capture 
fleeing slaves, took the floor, and opened the most mem- 
orable debate in the house, of our time, not excepting the 
amnesty battle. He began the debate by the delivery of 
one of his most powerful speeches, entirely extempore. 
He thus states the position of the parties and the issues 
between them : 

Mr. Garfield said: 

Mr. Chairman: I have no hope of being abfe to convey to the mem- 
bers of this house my own conviction of the very great gravity and 
solemnity of the crisis which this decision of the chair and the com- 
mittee of the whole has brought upon this country. I wish I could be 
proved a false prophet in reference to the result of this action. I wish. 
I could be overwhelmed with the proof that I am utterly mistaken in 
my views. But no view I have ever taken has entered more deeply and 
more seriously into my conviction than this, that the house has to-day 
resolved to enter upon a revolution against the constitution and govern- 
ment of the United States. I do not know that this intention exists in 
the minds of half the representatives who occupy the other side of this 
hall. I hope it does not. I am ready to believe it does not exist to 



ATTEMPTED REVOLUTION. 343 

any great extent. But I affirm that the consequence of the programme 
just adopted, if persisted in, will be nothing less than the total subver- 
sion of this government. 

THE QUESTION STATED. 

Let me in the outset state, as carefully as I may, the precise situation. 
At our last session, all our ordinary legislative work was done in accord- 
ance with the usages of the house and senate, except as to two bills. 
Two of the twelve great appropriation bills for the support of the gov- 
ernment were agreed to in both houses as to every matter of detail con- 
cerning the appropriations proper. We were assured by the commit- 
tees of conference in both bodies that there would be no difficulty in 
adjusting all differences in reference to the amount of money to be ap- 
propriated and the objects of its appropriation. But the house of 
representatives proposed three measures of distinctly independent leg- 
islation; one upon the army appropriation bill, and two upon the legis- 
lative appropriation bill. The three grouped together are briefly these: 
First, the substantial modification of certain sections of the law relating 
to the use of the army; second, the repeal of the jurors' test oath; and 
third, the repeal of the laws regulating the election of members of 
congress. 

These three propositions of legislation were insisted upon by the 
house, but the senate refused to adopt them. So far it was an ordi- 
nary proceeding, one which occurs frequently in all legislative bodies. 
The senate said to us through their conferrees, "We are ready to pass 
the appropriation bills; but we are unwilling to pass as riders the three 
legislative measures you ask us to pass." Thereupon the house, through 
its conference committee, made the following declaration — and in order 
that I may do exact justice, I read from the speech of the distinguished 
senator from Kentucky [Mr. Beck], on the report of the conference 
committe: "The Democratic conferrees on the part of the house seem 
determined that unless those rights were secured to the people " — al- 
ludinsr to the three points I have named — "in the bill sent to the sen- 
ate, they would refuse, under their constitutional right, to make appro- 
priations to carry on the government, if the dominant majority in the 
senate insisted on the maintenance of these laws and refused to con- 
sent to their repeal." 



344 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

He then rapidly surveyed the course of events, and 
the exertions of the Repubhcans. He said he should 
limit himself to the army bill rider ; he disposed of some 
preliminaries, and then produced some broad and 
general, as well as new views of such importance, that 
they cannot be too widely disseminated. 

THE VOLUNTARY POWERS OF THE GOVERNMENT. 

I had occasion, at a late hour of the late congress, to say something 
on what may be called the voluntary element in our institutions. I 
spoke of the distribution of the powers of government. First, to the 
Nation; second, to the States, and, third, the resenation of power to 
the people themselves. 

I called attention to the fact that under our form of government the 
most precious rights that men can possess on this earth are not dele- 
gated to the Nation nor to the States, but are reserved to the third 
estate — the people themselves. I called attention to the interesting fact 
that lately the chancellor of the German Empire made the declaration 
that it was the chief object of the existence of the German government 
to defend and maintain the religion of Jesus Christ — an object in refer- 
ence to which our congress is absolutely forbidden by the constitution 
to legislate at all. Congress can establish no religion; indeed, can make 
no law respecting it, because in the views of our fathers — the founders 
of our government — religion was too precious a right to intrust its 
interests by delegation to any government. Its maintenance was left 
to the voluntary action of the people themselves. 

Mr. Garfield continued by supposing the consequences 
if the people should fail to elect, or the two houses 
should refuse to work together, and continues : 

At a first view, it would seem strange that a body of men so wise as 
our fathers were, should have left a whole side of their fabric open to 
these deadly assaults; but on a closer view of the case their wisdom 
will appear. What was their reliance ? This: the sovereign of this Na- 
tion, the God-crowned and Heaven-annointed sovereign, in whom re- 
sides "the State's collected will," and to whom we all owe allegiance, is 



ATTEMPTED REVOLUTION. 345 

the people themselves. Inspired by love of country and by a deep 
sense of obligation to perform every public duty, being themselves the 
creators of all the agencies and forces to execute their own will, and 
choosing from themselves their representatives to express that will in the 
forms of law, it would have been like a suggestion of suicide to assume 
that any of these great voluntary powers would be turned against the 
life of the government. Public opinion — that great ocean of thought 
from whose level all heights and all depths are measured — was trusted 
as a power amply able, and always willing, to guard all the approaches 
on that side of the constitution from any assault on the life of the 
Nation. 

Now, Mr. Chairman, it has been said on the other side, that when a 
demand for the redress of grievances is made, the authority that runs 
the risk of stopping and destroying the government is the one that re- 
sists the redress. Not so. If gentlemen will do me the honor to follow 
my thought for a moment more, I trust I will make this denial good. 

FREE CONSENT THE BASIS OF OUR L.WVS. 

Our theory of law is free consent. That is the granite foundation of 
our whole superstructure. Nothing in this country can be law without 
consent — the free consent of the house, the free consent of the senate, 
the free consent of the executive, or, if he refuse it, the free consent of 
two-thirds of these bodies. Will any man deny that? Will any man 
challenge a line of the statement that free consent is the foundation of 
all our institutions? And yet the programme announced two weeks 
ago was that, if the senate refused to consent to the demand of the 
house the government should stop. And the proposition was then, and 
the programme is now, that, although there is not a senate to be co- 
erced, there is still a third independent branch in the legislative power 
of the government whose consent is to be coerced at the peril of the 
destruction of this government; that is, if the President, in the dis- 
charge of his duty, shall exercise his plain constitutional right to refuse 
his consent to this proposed legislation, the congress will so use its vol- 
untary powers as to destroy the government. This is the proposition 
which we confront; and we denounce it as revolution. 

****** 

I now turn aside, for a moment, from the line of my argument, to say 



346 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

that it is not a little surprising that our friends on the other side should 
have gone into this great contest on so weak a cause as the one em- 
braced in the pending amendment to this bill. 

Victor Hugo said, in his description of the battle of Waterloo, that 
the struggle of the two armies was like the wrestling of two giants, 
when a chip under tlie heel of one might determine the victory. It 
may be that this amendment is the chip under your heel, or it may be 
that it is the chip on our shoulder. As a chip, it is of small account to 
you or to us; but when it represents the integrity of the constitution, 
and is assailed by revolution, we fight for'it as for a Kohinoor of purest 
water. [Applause.] * * * 

DEMOCR.A.TS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE ELECTION LAW. 

Of Republican senators, thirteen voted against it ; only ten voted for it. 

The bill then came to the house of representatives and was put upon 
its passage here. How did the vote stand in this body? Every Demo- 
crat present at the time in the house of representatives of the Thirty- 
eighth congress voted for it. The total vote in its favor in the house 
was one hundred and thirteen; and of these, fifty-eight were Democrats. 

Those Republicans who voted against it did so on the ground that 
there was no cause for such legislation ; that it w'as a slander upon the 
government and the army to say that they were interfering with the 
proper freedom of elections. I was among that number 

Mr. Carlisle. Will the gentleman allow me to ask him a question? 

Mr. Garfield. Certainly. 

Mr. Carlisle. I ask if the Democrats in the senate and house of rep- 
resentatives did not vote for that proposition because it came in the 
form of a substitute for another proposition that was still more objec- 
tionable ? 

Mr. Garfield. The gentleman is quite mistaken. The original bill 
was introduced by a gentleman from Kentucky, Mr. Powell; it was 
amended in its course through the Senate; but the votes to which I 
have referred were the final votes on its passage after all the amend- 
ments had been made; and, what was more, a Republican senator 
moved to reconsider it, hoping that he might thereby kill it. And after 
several days' delay and debate it was again passed, every Democrat 
again voting for it. In the house there was no debate, and therefore 



ATTEMPTED REVOLUTION. 347 

no expression of the reasons why anybody voted for it. Each man 
voted according to his convictions, I suppose. 

THE NEW REBELLION. 

Let it be understood that I am not discussing the merits of this law. 
I have merely turned aside from the line of my argument to show the 
inconsistency of the other side in proposing to stop the government if 
they cannot force the repeal of a law which they themselves made. I 
am discussing a method of revolution against the constitution now 
proposed by this house, and to that issue I hold gentlemen in this de- 
bate, and challenge them to reply. * « * 

But I am compelled, by the conduct of the other side, to refer to a 
chapter of our recent histoi)'. The last act of Democratic domination 
ip this capitol, eighteen years ago, was striking and dramatic, perhaps 
heroic. Then the Democratic party said to the Republicans, "If you 
elect the man of your choice as President of the United States, we will 
shoot your government to death " ; but the people of this country, re- 
fusing to be coerced by threats or violence, voted as they pleased, and 
lawfully elected Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States. 

To-day, after eighteen years of defeat, the book of your domination 
is again opened, and your first act awakens every unhappy memory, 
and threatens to destroy the confidence which your professions of pat- 
riotism inspired. You turned down a leaf of the history that recorded 
your last act of power in 1861, and you have now signalized your re- 
turn to power by beginning a second chapter at the same page, not 
this time by a heroic act that declares war on the battle-field, but you 
say, if all the legislative powers of the government do not consent to 
let you tear certain laws out of the statute-book, you will not shoot 
our government to death as you tried to do in the first chapter, but 
you declare that if we do not consent against our will, if you cannot 
coerce an independent branch of this government, against its will, 
to allow you to tear from the statute books some laws put there 
by the will of the people, you will starve the government to death. 
[Great applause on the Republican side.] * * * 

COERCION OF THE PRESIDENT. 

Now, by a method which the wildest secessionist scorned to adopt, 
it is proposed to make this new assault upon the life of the Republic. 



348 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

Gentlemen, we have calmly surveyed this ne* field of conflict; we 
have tried to count the cost of the struggle, as we did that of i85i be- 
fore we took up your gage of battle. Though no human foresight could 
forecast the awful loss of blood and treasure, yet in the name of liberty 
and union we accepted the issue and fought it out to the end. We 
made the appeal to our august sovereign, to the omnipotent public 
opinion of America, to dertermine whether the Union should perish at 
your hands. You know the result. And now lawfully, in the exercise 
of our rights as representatives, we take up the gage you have this day 
thrown down, and appeal again to our common sovereign to determine 
whether you shall be permitted to destroy the principle of free consent 
in legislation under the threat of starving the government to death. 

We are ready to pass these bills for the support of the government 
at any hour when you will offer them in the ordinary way, by the meth- 
ods prescribed by the constitution. If you offer those other proposi- 
tions of legislation as separate measures, we will meet you in the frater- 
nal spirit of fair debate and will discuss their merits. Some of your 
measures many of us will vote for in separate bills. But you shall not 
coerce any independent branch of this government, even by the threat 
of starvation, to consent to surrender its lawful powers until the ques- 
tion has been appealed to the sovereign and decided in your favor. On 
this ground we plant ourselves, and here we will stand to the end. 

Let it be remembered that the avowed object of this new revolution 
is to destroy all the defences which the Nation has placed around its 
ballot-box to guard the fountains of its own life. You say that the 
United States shall not employ even its civil power to keep peace at 
the polls. You say that the marshals shall have no power either to 
arrest rioters or criminals who seek to destroy the freedom and purity 
of the ballot-bo.x. 

I remind you that you have not always shown this great zeal in keep- 
ing the civil officers of the general government out of the States. Only 
six years before the war, your law authorized marshals of the United 
States to enter all our hamlets and households to hunt for fugitive 
slaves. Not only that, it empowered the marshals to summon the 
fosse comitatus, to command all by-standers to join in the chase and 
aid in remanding to eternal bondage the fleeing slave. And your 
Democratic attorney-general, in his opinion published in 1854, declared 



ATTEMPTED REVOLUTION. 349 

that the marshal of the United States might summon to his aid the 
whole able-bodied force of his precinct, all bystanders, including not 
only the citizens generally, "but any and all organized armed forces, 
whether militia of the State, or officers, soldiers, sailors, and marines 
of the United States," to join in the chase and hunt down the fugitive. 
Now, gentlemen, if, for the purpose of making eternal slavery the lot 
of an American, you could send your marshals, summon your posse, and 
use the armed force of the United States, with what force or grace can 
you tell us that this government cannot lawfully employ the same mar- 
shals with tlieir armed posse of citizens, to maintain the purity of our 
own elections and keep the peace at our own polls. You have made 
the issue and we have accepted it. In the name of the constitution, 
and on behalf of good government and public justice, we make the 
appeal to our common sovereign. 

For the present, I refrain from discussing the merits of the election 
laws. I have sought only to state the first fundamental ground of our 
opposition to this revolutionary method of legislation by coercion. 
[Great applause. ] 

• Mr. Sparks. Before the gentleman from Ohio takes his seat, I hope 
he will give to the house the name of the attorney-general of the 
United States to whom he referred. 

Mr. Garfield. I . refer to Caleb Gushing, the Democratic attorney- 
general of President Pierce. 

Mr. Garfield was followed by Mr. McMahon in a pre- 
pared speech, in which there was wisely no attempt to 
answer him. Belford, Republican, and Muldrow and 
Chalmers, of Mississippi, Democrats, made speeches on 
April 2d, who did attempt to reply to Garfield, especially 
the last. Mr. Frye, of Maine, then came in. Frank 
Hurd made a set reply to Garfield, and was applauded; 
others came rattling in. April 4th Proctor Knott got in 
a set speech, as did Mr. Houk. Somewhere Robeson 
delivered some good licks. Blackburn, the Kentucky 
orator, made a decided sensation. He declared the 



350 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

Democracy would never cease effort till the last vestige 
of the war legislation was stricken from the statutes. He 
was followed by Gibson and Turner. An evening session 
was holden, and the debate ran on, and most elaborate 
speeches were delivered. Tucker, of Virginia, and 
others of the ablest Democrats, severally replied to Gar- 
field, without answering him. Then he rejoined as clos- 
ing the debate on the first army bill. He had ten min- 
utes, and the spirit of his reply, at least, will be seen 
from one or two telling paragraphs: 

Mr. Chairman; During the last four days, some fifteen or twenty 
gentlemen have paid their special attention to the argument I made last 
Saturday, and have announced its complete demolition. Now that the 
general debate has closed, I will notice the principal points of attack by 
which this work of destruction has been accomplished. 

In the first place, every man, save one, who has replied to me, has 
alleged that I held it was revolutionary to place this general legislation 
upon an appropriation bill. One gentleman went so far as to fill a page 
of the record with citations from the Congressional Globe and the Con- 
gressional Record to show that for many years riders had been placed 
upon appropriation bills. If gentlemen find any pleasure in setting 
up a man of straw and knocking it down again, they have enjoyed 
themselves. 

I never claimed that it was either revolutionary or unconstitutional 
for this house to put a rider on an appropriation bill. No man on this 
side of the house has claimed that. The most that has been said is 
that it is considered a bad parliamentary practice; and all parties in 
this country have said that repeatedly. 

He hit all who had made points of any pith. His an- 
swer to their efforts to show that they were not attempt- 
ing to coerce the President was most effective. His re- 
ply to Tucker was even better. Then he turned to 
Blackburn: 



ATTEMPTED REVOLUTION. 35 I 

If the party which, after eighteen years' banishment from power, has 
come back, as the gentleman from Kentucky [Mr. Blackburn] said yes- 
terday, to its "birthright of power," or "heritage," as it is recorded in 
the Record of this morning, is to signalize its return by striking down 
the gallant and faithful army of the United States, the people of this 
country will not be slow to understand that there are reminiscences of 
that army which these gentlemen would willingly forget, by burying 
both the army and the memories of its great service to the Union in one 
grave. [Applause.] 

The hammer was up and ere it fell he concluded thus: 

The gentleman from Maryland [Mr. McLane] said, the other day, 
there was nothing in the Constitution which empowered any offtcer of 
the United States to keep the peace in the States. A .single sentence, 
Mr. Chairman, before your hammer falls. I ask that gentleman to tell 
us whether the United States has no power to keep the peace in the 
great post-office in Baltimore City, so that the postmaster may attend to 
his duties; whether we have not the power to keep the peace along the 
line of every railroad that carries our mails, or where any post-rider of 
the "star service" carries the mail on his saddle; whether we have not 
the right, if need be, to line the post-road with troops, and to bring the 
guns of the navy to bear to protect any custom-house or light-house of 
the United States? And yet, if the gentleman's theory be correct, we 
cannot enforce a single civil process of this government by the aid of 
an armed fosse without making it a penitentiary offense on the part of 
the officer who does it. [Applause on the Republican side.] 

The effect of the leading speech was very great and 
long-continued. ]\Iany attempts to reply were made. 
It never was answered — was unanswerable. It greatly 
disturbed the pensive Lamar in the senate. He was 
melancholy over it, even dreamed of answering it in the 
senate. There was a fallacy in it, he knew. He called 
in the aid of great and subtle intellects, formulated re- 
joinders, but the senate chamber never resounded with 
his eloquence in an attempted review of it. 



352 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

On the wordy torrent ran. I take one paragraph from 
Garfield's speech of April i6. What a blow, and as 
near a taunt as he ever went. 

Gentlemen,' I took upon myself a very grave responsibility in the 
opening of this debate, when I quoted the declarations of leading 
members on the other side, and said that the programme was revolu- 
tion, and, if not abandoned, would result in the destruction of this 
government. I declared that you had entered upon a scheme which 
if persisted in would starve the government to death. I say that I 
took a great risk when I made this charge against you as a party. I 
put myself in your power, gentlemen. If I had misconceived your 
purposes and misrepresented your motives, it was in your power to 
prove me a false accuser. It was in your power to ruin me in the esti- 
mation of fair-minded, patriotic men, by the utterance of one sentence. 
The humblest or the greatest of you could have overwhelmed me with 
shame and confusion in one short sentence. You could have said, 
' ' We wish to pass our measures of legislation in reference to elec- 
tions, juries, and the use of the army; and we will if we can do so 
constitutionally ; but if we cannot get these measures in accordance 
with the constitution, we will pass the appropriation bills like loyal 
representatives ; and then go home and appeal to the people. " 

If any man, speaking for the majority, had made that declaration, 
uttered that sentence, he would have ruined me in the estimation of 
fair-minded men, and set me down as a false accuser and slanderer. 
Forty-five of you have spoken. Forty-five of you have deluged the 
ear of this country with debate ; but that sentence has not been spoken 
by any one of you. On the contrary, by your silence, as well as by 
your affirmation, you have made my accusation overwhelmingly true. 

I pass the speeches of June loth and nth as also 
several others. The debate ran to July ist. I give the 
opening paragraphs of that of June 27th, showing the 
state of the field at that time. As is his wont he uses 
the figures of his boy love — the sea. 

Mr. Chairman, "to this favor" it has come at last. The great fleet 



ATTEMPTED REVOLUTION. 353 

that set out on the eighteenth of March, with all its freightage and arm- 
ament, is so shattered that now all the valuables it carried are embarked 
in this little craft to meet whatever fate the sea and the storm may 
offer. This little bill contains the residuum of almost everything that 
has been the subject of controversy at the present session. I will not 
discuss it in detail, but will speak only of its central feature, and 
especially of the opinions which the discussion of that feature has 
brought to the surface during the present session. The majority in this 
congress have adopted what I consider very extreme and dangerous 
opinions on certain important constitutional questions. They have not 
only drifted back to their old attitude on the subject of State sovereignty, 
but they have pushed that doctrine much further than most of their 
predecessors ever went before, excepting during the period immediately 
preceding the late war. 

At another time he hesitates to add to the forty-two 
speeches already spread on the congressional record. 
His collected speeches for the extra session make a pam- 
phlet of near sixty large pages. He, as a debater, was 
never so great, versatile and ready. He was the one 
grand figure growing larger and looming more ominously 
upon the majority of the house. 

The ignominious outcome of the Democracy, at the 
end of this memorable session, is a matter of history, 
which consecrates them to everlasting ridicule. Of the 
forty-five million dollars required, forty-four million four 
hundred thousand dollars were finally granted, and subse- 
quently the whole sum, save some six thousand dollars. 

Some other matter came up at this same extra session. 
The twenty-first of June, on a bill to provide for the 
survey of the Mississippi river, he was exceedingly happy 
in his advocacy of it. I quote the last paragraph of his 
speech, showing his broad catholic patriotism : 



354 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

Now, Mr. Speaker and gentlemen of the house, there is another 
reason why I am in favor of this measure. I rejoice in any occasion 
which enables representatives from the North and from the South to 
unite in an unpartisan effort to promote a great national interest. 
[Applause.] Such an occasion is good for us both. And when we can 
do it without the sacrifice of our convictions, and can benefit millions 
of our fellow-citizens, and thereby strenghten the bonds of the Union, 
we ought to do it with rejoicing; for, in so doing, we shall inspire our 
people with larger and more generous views, and help to confirm for 
them and for our posterity to our latest generations, the indissoluble 
Union and the permanent grandeur of this Republic. I shall vote for 
this bill. [.Applause on both sides of the house.] 

Mr. Garfield's last considerable speech was one of his 
ablest, in support of the sentiment: "Obedience to the 
law, the foremost duty of Congress." His very last, a 
day or two before he left the capital for Chicago, was to 
urge the perfection of the signal service. We cannot 
look into these. 

So, I resolutely refuse to glance at a mass of miscel- 
laneous speeches in the house, which of themselves 
would have made the reputation of a more ordinary man. 
I leave them to the hands of the future editor. There 
are his beautiful things on the reception of the John 
Winthrop and Samuel Adams statues; on the Carpenter 
painting of Lincoln's first cabinet; the relation' of the 
national government to science; even an exhaustive 
speech on the exhausted McGarrihan claim, and others, 
on many miscellaneous subjects, disconnected with his 
great fields of labor. 

Here we take leave of his congressional career, leaving 
it to the thought and study of his appreciative country- 
men. 
/ 



PART FIVE. 



In Other Characters- 
Conclusion, 



CHAPTER I. 

THE LAWYER. 

Reasons for not Entering the Ministry. — Studies Law. — Admission. — 
The Milligan His First Case. — The Court, its Judges and Lawyers. 
— The Case. — No Law Authorizing Milligan's Prosecution. — Con- 
dition of the Country. — The Advocate. — His Opponent's argument. 
— Result. — Campbell Will Case. — Preparation. — Trial. — Leading 
Cases. — Gains the Cause. — Cases in the Supreme Court* and Else- 
where. — Earnings at the Bar. 

It will be remembered that coincident with his profes- 
sor days Mr. Garfield was a lay preacher among his peo- 
ple of the Disciple church, to which he remains at- 
tached. As time bore him forward he queried wuth him- 
self as to the regular ministry. The wishes and influence 
of his mother were strong, and these were greatly strength- 
ened by the universal desire of the churches. It w-as a 
perplexing matter, one which he must decide for himself. 
He was conscious that while his people had no written 
creed yet there were certain limitations of doctrine in 
their construction of the New Testament which he might 
find narrow. In a smaller way came in his want of 
means, and it was rather the theory of the Disciples that 
the ministry of the word was quite consistent with 
poverty. There was a winsome maiden whose eyes had 
awakened a wish for that dual life, which for her sake he 
resolved should not be lost in the narrow cheerlessness 



358 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

of poverty, to which he was born, and which had walked 
with him some thing more than a phantom through Ufe. 
He would not be a minister. He would find an early 
occasion to announce his purpose to the Disciples and 
to the world. He even mentally sketched the outline of 
his address. He would study law, be a lawyer. Then 
came his election to the senate. If he then should 
announce his purpose he would be subject to the impu- 
tation of being allured from the high, serene path of the 
ministry, for the charm of politics, place-seeking and 
affairs. He would not make the announcement till he 
left the senate. Then came the war and swept him off 
in a whirlwind of fire, and he never did make it. Things — 
events took him as they always did and set him his task. 
With his instinctive idea of beginning with the root- 
lets of things, and his conscientious thoroughness, at his 
time of life, with his mental training, he was admirably 
prepared to master the law. He applied to a lawyer m 
a somewhat remote town, to whom he felt himself drawn, 
and in consultation marked out a course of study. He 
was then at the head of the college at Hiram, which 
numbered three or four hundred students, with many 
outside demands upon his time. He began with Black- 
stone, read a chapter, made from memory a rapid ab- 
stract of it, and later, re-read the chapter, and then re- 
vised his notes of it. This was his method. Among 
the books of his course was "Gould's Pleading," in many 
respects the most scientific and complete treatise of com- 
mon law-pleading ever written. The master of it is a 
good lawyer. Garfield mastered it. At the end of the 



THE LAWYER. 359 

required two years he was attending his duties as a 
senator at Columbus, and applied for admission to the 
supreme court of the State, then sitting as a court of 
errors. His application was referred to Thomas Key 
and Richard Harrison, both members of the senate, the 
first a Democrat, and Mr. Harrison a Republican of de- 
cided conservative tendencies. Both were able lawyers, 
and with both he had interchanged blows in the senate. 
Neither had any idea of his real acquisitions, nor more 
than a courteous disposition to treat him fairly. They 
subjected Mr. Garfield to a thorough and searching exam- 
ination, but they did him ample justice. In their report 
they spoke of his mastery of the law as unusual, phe- 
nomenal, as of course it was. James Mason, esq., em- 
inent at the Ohio bar, which suffers nothing by compar- 
ison with any other, a relative of Mr. Garfield's young 
wife, was ready to form a partnership with him, but the 
inexorable war, which carried off the young preacher, 
bore away the young lawyer in the same fiery chariot. 
Not wholly to the bar was he lost, as we shall see. The 
Milligan case will be remembered. That was his first 
case. It was before the supreme court of the United 
States — the old court of Marsl all, chief justice by Wash- 
ington's appointment, where Jay and Ellsworth had pre- 
sided, and where another Washington, and Story, Thomp- 
son and Baldwin once sat. Where Emmet and DuPon- 
ceau, Webster and Pinckney, and Wirt, and Johnson, 
and Black, and Evarts, and half a hundred other great 
advocates had been heard, and had left the traditions of 
their fame. This was the court, sitting in the old senate 



360 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

chamber of Webster, Clay, Calhoun, Ewing, Seward, 
Chase and Sumner, in the capitol, fanned by the two flags 
over the two houses, in which he first appeared. It was a 
great case, a cmisa celebra. Misguided men, caught in 
the great whirlpool of the rebellion, which drew in a 
hemisphere, were in the grasp of relentless power, which 
had itself in a way become revolutionary, in its war 
to save from greater revolution. 

It had become unscrupulous, relentless, inexorable 
— had substituted its hasty, unlawful ordinances for the 
irrepealable law of the land, unmindful that if it 
stripped the awful form of Justice of the consecrating 
robes of the law, and sent it forth to take its penalties 
in men's forfeited lives, that in this guise its judgment 
was vengeance, and it became a murderer and not justice^ 
that this was a violation of the inner essence of law and 
justice, which alone authorized the very war which the 
Nation was then waging; that there was no more consti- 
tutional right to put Milligan to death, as he had been 
adjudged, or send him to the penitentiary for life, to 
which the President commuted his punishment, than 
there was for the revolt of the States. And this was the 
awful paradox the Nation was enacting. It was seeking 
to preserve its life by violating the principle which gave 
it a right to live. It was waging war on exactly the same 
absence of right and law, as that on which alone the re- 
bellion rested. Who was to come forward and make all 
this clear, and save the lives and liberties of Milligan and 
his band, and save the Nation from the suicide involved 
in their punishment? A man of courage as well as of 



THE LAWYER. 361 

rare ability. For precisely the same spirit which had en- 
meshed Milligan in the fatal snair of lawless doom would 
concentrate its wrath on his advocate. It required more 
courage than to rally the fleeing soldiers from Chicka- 
mauga. A man who could scornfully confront an enraged 
convention; stand alone against the house of represent- 
atives and denounce it; a man who went and searched 
out the cause he knew not in the old capitol prison, and 
turned upon the great secretary of war, girt with his armies, 
and a more powerful and subservient public opinion ; and 
this blond - faced, blue-eyed saxon young man went for- 
ward to this duty. And this was the young lawyer's first 
case, paralleled in the history of our jurisprudence by the 
defense of the British soldiers for the Boston massacre, 
by John Adams, in the old revolutionary time. That the 
peril to himself was not imaginary, the young man soon 
felt, in the condemnation expressed of him in the jour- 
nals of his own State, and the momentary denunciation 
of his constituents. The case was tried in March, 1866, 
and deemed of the utmost importance to the National 
cause. 

Under the vague, shadowy war power, never defined 
even by those who exercised it, these men were seized 
in 1864, in the State of Indiana, then not invaded; they 
were not in the military service, and were charged with 
conspiracy against the United States, inciting insurrection, 
disloyal practices, violations of the laws of war, commit- 
ted in Indiana, tried by a military commission unknown 
to any law, and sentenced to death by hanging. The 
sentence was ai)proved by President Lincoln, who com- 



362 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

muted death to imprisonment for life. The prisoners 
appUed for a /labeas corpus^ under the act of congress of 
March 3, 1S63. The United States circuit court were 
divided in opinion, and the case came before the supreme 
court to settle the questions thus raised. Others appeared 
with Mr. Garfield, but he from his position and surround- 
ings was mainly relied on. For the United States ap- 
peared Attorney-General Speed, Henry Stanberry, his 
successor, and General Butler. My quotation from Mr. 
Garfield's argument must be brief. After a happy state- 
ment of the case — that the question was, whether the 
commission had a legal existence, he said: 

As a first step toward reaching an answer to this question, I affirm 
that every citizen of the United States is under the diminion of law; 
that whether lie be a civihan, a soldier, or a sailor, the constitution pro- 
vides for him a tribunal before which he may be protected if innocent, 
and punished if guilty of crime. 

He then quoted the fifth amendment to the constitu- 
tion, and traced out the power for the creation of courts 
under that instrument. From that he diverged to the 
^ military department, and stated with exactitude its limits 
of authority, and traced down the current of enactment 
and usage, and the jurisdiction of military courts. He 
then drew the line which divided the citizen from the 
soldier. One side of it he was a citizen, and amenable 
to the civil courts; the other he was a soldier, under 
the jurisdiction of miUtary courts. The line had been 
marked all the way. A man does not pass that line from 
citizen to soldier, till mustered into the military service, 
With his usual perspicuous care, he then clearly opened 
cut the cases on these points, showing that the supreme 



THE LAWYER. 363 

court had jurisdiction to inquire into and review the case 
before it. 

The prisoners were not in the naval service, nor in the 
military, nor militia; and called into service, were mere 
civilians. 

He then examined the authority for military commis- 
sions. 

Thus he states the position of the attorney-general and 
his associates. 

The honorable attorney-general and his distinguished colleague 
(General Butler) declare that — 

I. A military commission derives its power and authority wholly 
from martial law; and by that law, and by military authority only are 
its proceedings to be judged or reviewed; that — 

II. "Martial law is the will of the commanding officer of an armed 
force, or of a geographical military department expressed in time of 
war, within the limits of his military jurisdiction, as necessity demands 
and prudence dictates, restrained or enlarged by the orders of his mili- 
tary chief or supreme executive ruler," and that "the officer executing 
martial law is at the same time supreme legislator, supreme judge, and 
supreme executive." 

To give any color of plausibility to this novel proposition, they were 
compelled not only to ignore the constitution, but to declare it sus- 
pended; its voice drowned in the thunders of war. Accordingly, with 
consistent boldness, they declare that the third, fourth and fifth articles 
of amendments "are all peace provisions of the constitution, and, like 
all other conventional and legislative laws and enactments are silent 
'inter arma,' when 'salus populi supreina est lex.'" Applying these 
doctrines to this cause, they hold that from the fifth of October, 1864, 
to the ninth of May, 1865, martial law alone existed in Indiana; that it 
silenced not only the civil courts, but all the laws of the land, and even 
the constitution itself; and during that silence the executor of martial 
law could lay his hand upon every citizen, could not only suspend the 
writ of habeas corpus, but could create a court which should have the 



364 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

exclusive jurisdiction over the citizen to try him, sentence him, and 
put him to death. 

We have already seen that the congress of the United States raises 
and supports armies, provides and maintains navies, and makes the 
rules and regulations for the government of both; but it would appear 
from the teachings of the learned counsel on the other side, that when 
congress has done all these things — when, in the name of the Republic, 
and in order to put down rebellion and restore the supremacy of law, 
it has created the grandest army that ever fought — the power thus 
created rises above its source and destroys both creator and law. 

They would have us believe that the government of the United 
States has evoked a spirit which it cannot lay — has called into being a 
po*ver which at once destroyed and superseded its author, and rode, in 
uncontrolled triumph, over citizen and court, congress and constitution. 

All this mockery is uttered before this august court, whose ever)' 
member is sworn to administer the law in accordance with the consti- 
tution ! 

Mark the strength of the last paragraphs. 

In a masterly argument of simple, compact force and 
vigorous strength, he proceeds for the next hour and a 
half to the utter extinction of every shadow of law, pre- 
cedent and reason, supporting the proposition contended 
for by the government. Authorities were never more 
logically compacted and effectually presented, and the 
case at bar clearly placed within their reach, than by him. 
Then he opened out, explained, and enforced the reasons 
for the war legislation of congress, showing that military 
commissions found no resting place or support in them. 
I quote his beautiful and impressive peroration : 

When Pericles had made Greece immortal in arts and arms, in liberty 
and law, he invoked the genius of Phidias to devise a monument which 
should symbohze the beauty and glory of Athens. That artist selected 
for his theme the tutelar diNinity of Athens, the Jove-born goddess, 
protectress of arts and arms, of industry' and law, who typified the 



THE LAWYER. 



565 



Greek conception of composed, majestic, unrelenting lorce. He erected 
on the heights of the Acropolis a colossal statue of Minerva, armed 
with spear and helmet, which towered in awful majesty above the sur- 
rounding temples of the gods. Sailors on far-off ships beheld the crest 
and spear of the goddess and bowed with reverent awe. To every 
Greek she was the symbol of power and glory. But the Acropolis, 
with its temples and statues is now a heap of ruins. The visible gods 
have vanished in the clearer light of modern civilization. We cannot 
restore the decayed emblems of ancient Greece, but it is in your power, 
O Judges, to erect in this citadel of our liberties, a monument more last- 
ing than brass; invisible indeed to the eye of flesh, but visible to the 
eye of the spirit as the awful form and figure of Justice, crowning and 
adorning the republic; rising above the storms of political strife, above 
the din of battle, above the earthquake shock of rebellion ; seen from 
afar and hailed as protector by the oppressed of all nations; dispens- 
ing equal blessings, and covering with the protecting shield of law the 
weakest, the humblest, the meanest, and, until declared by solemn law 
unworthy of protection, the guiltiest of its citizens. 

The argument was delivered in a crowded court room, 
and was justly esteemed by the cool -judging, wise old 
heads of the bar, as one of the ablest in that forum, 
consecrated to weight, logic and law, with a suspicion of 
dullness and a flavor of the somniferous. 

They congratulated him and the judges complimented 
him. 

The court adjudged as follows: 

First. That on the facts as stated in said petition and exhibits, a 
writ of habeas corpus ought to be issued according to the prayer of said 
petition. 

Second. That on the facts stated in the said petition and exhibits, 
the said Lambdin P. Milligan ought to be discharged from custody as 
in said petition is prayed, and according to the act of congress, passed 
third of March, 1863, entitled "An act relating to habeas corpus, and 
regulating judicial proceedings in certain cases." 

Third. That on the facts stated in said petition and exhibits, the 



366 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

military commission mentioned therein had no jurisdiction legally to 
try and sentence said Lambdin P. Milligan in the manner and form as 
in said petition and exhibits are stated. 

And it is therefore now here ordered and adjudged by this court that 
it be so certified to the said circuit court. 

Judge Davies pronounced the opinion which was for a 
time withheld, and the wise logical world, as between 
him and General Garfield, adjudged him the guiltier. 
However much it blames an advocate for appearing on 
the unpopular side of a case, it always visits the per- 
suaded and convinced judge with greater punishment 
than it awards to the advocate who persuaded and con- 
vinced him. 

Mr. Garfield's argument placed him at once in the 
rank of the very able men who appear in the supreme 
court of the United States — would have conferred great 
distinction on almost any other man. 

Some way, as his gifts are so much more abundant, 
greater things seem to be exacted of him than of others, 
for the same meed. Had he the persistent, untiring push 
of some others — of which no flavor exists in him — he 
might have ruined the possibility of going to the first 
place ten years ago. We think of this and are silent, 
it was wise to be unconscious of great deserving. He 
could wait. 

THE ALEXANDER CAMPBELL WILL CASE. 

This remarkable man who exercised so great an influ- 
ence over the faiths, opinions and even the fortunes and 
lives of so many; who had mainly built up a new church 
on the restored, old foundations, as was claimed, founded 



THE LAWYER. 367 

aioUege, defended revelation against infidelity, and Pro- 
testanism against Rome, whose opinions largely influenced 
the thought of his time, finally fell under the delusion 
that he had himself visited Jerusalem, and it was the 
solace of many hours, to give glowing descriptions of the 
fallen city. These were due as was supposed, to the 
vivid pictures of the desecrated home of the old and new 
faith, conveyed to him in the letters of an intellectual 
and favorite daughter. He was a man of much wealth, 
and was the father of two sets of children. Those of 
the first wife being daughters, to whom in his life time he 
had apportioned what he deemed their just shares of his 
property. By his will he devised the residue to the chil- 
dren of the second wife. The elder daughters were 
dead, leaving children and husbands. These husbands, 
one the president of his college of Bethany, Virginia, re- 
pudiated the claimed settlement with them, and brought 
their suit to set aside the will for alleged, non-sound 
mind of the testator, and thus be let in with the younger 
children to an equal share of the residue of the estate. 
They employed eminent counsel, among whom was the 
late Ben. F. Stanton, formerly of Ohio. The devisees 
under the will, retained Judge Jerry Black and General 
Garfield. The case by arrangement was left to the judges, 
and came on for trial in the spring of iS68, in the Vir- 
ginia court. The case had then been pending for a year 
or more. 

On his retainer, Garfield, overwhelmed as might be 
supposed, set himself about his prejoaration in his 
usual, thorough way. In the first place he broadly mas- 



368 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

tered the whole body of testamentary law, without refer- 
ence to his case. He always covers the whole ground, 
that no possible thing can anywhere spring up, out of 
unknown territory, to surprise him. He went through 
the Roman civil law, and then began with the older Eng- 
lish books; Swinburn, and the cases referred to by him, 
and so down to Jarman, thence to our own text writers 
and cases. Then he turned to the questions involved — 
testamentary capacity, and mastered the cases. Espe- 
cially he studied the leading New York case of Lispinard, 
where rules were recognized certainly not severe in their 
limits as to capacity. Then came the Parrish case, later, 
in the same courts, appearing by the syllabus to overrule 
the former, and redefining testamentary capacity, requir- 
ing a higher and broader range of mind, and furnishing 
a new definition, in the opinion of Chief Justice Davies. 
This with the dissenting opinions of Gould and others, al- 
together cover three hundred pages or more. He made 
ample notes of his studies, and laid everything away. 
The case did not come on in 1867; he went to Europe, 
returned, and went through with the labor and distrac- 
tions of the long session, and when the senate was trying 
the President, accompanied by Judge Black, he went to 
try the will case in Virginia. The greatest interest was 
manifested in the trial, and the court house was crowded 
the ten days it occupied. Over forty witnesses were 
examined. On the third day Judge Black returned 
home, leaving Garfield to tread the wine-press alone, 
save the aid of a junior who had looked up the witnesses. 
The case against the will was strong. Stanton, book in 



THE LAWYER. 369 

hand, read Judge Davies' rule to each of his witnesses, 
and from the most of them, received answers that Mr. 
Campbell did not meet its requirements. 

Garfield called his own witnesses and made a fair 
showing, putting in some interesting evidence. Stanton 
arose for the closing argument, a strong-fibered, logical, 
masterful mind, and a clear, forcible speaker. He 
cleared the ground, re-read Judge Davies' definition, 
and at the end of his six hours' speech left not a shred of 
a case for the will. The devisees were dismayed. Alex- 
ander, jr., was in despair. It was utterly useless to con- 
tend further. What occurred during the night following 
I have from one who was there at the time. Garfield 
had not seen his notes or books for a year. He packed 
them up and carried them to Virginia. On overhauling 
them he found that he had not his notes. For once his 
marvellous memory was in half-fault. He remembered 
that there was somewhere a charm which rendered the 
Parrish case and Judge Davies harmless to his case; that 
the Alice Lispinard case was the rule after all. The 
syllabus of the Parrish case stated that the Lispinard case 
was overruled, and so Judge Davies declared, and then, 
late at night, he sat down to read the case through. 
Toward morning his waiting, wakeful friend, saw him 
throw up his hands, breathe an exclamation of relief, 
close the book w-ith a resounding clap, and he went to 
bed. He met his clients with hopeful words in the 
morning, which were lost on them. The fame of the or- 
ator had long before reached Bethany. There was the 
utmost anxiety to hear him. The college had a holiday, 



37° LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

and men from a distance were there. ISIr. Garfield be- 
gan what was justly regarded a very powerful speech, by 
re-stating in the clear forceful way for which he is 
famous, the proposition and case of Mr. Stanton, and 
asked that gentleman if he had stated them fairly. Mr. 
Stanton arose and declared that they were stated with 
surpassing force and clearness, and beyond his own 
power of stating them himself, and he sat down with a 
taunting commendation of it, to the teeth of his "con- 
gressional friend." Garfield, resuming, said to the court: 
"If at the end of fifteen minutes I do not convince the 
court that the plaintiff's case has no resting place in the 
law, I will retire from it." He then turned to the lead- 
ing dissenting opinion of the Parrish case, and read pas- 
sages showing that the dissenting judges, and the whole 
court united with Davies in the judgment, pronounced, 
not because the court adopted his new rule, but because 
the facts under the rule of the Lisjjinard case showed 
that Parrish was incompetent to make a will. This was 
a reafifirmance of the Lispinard case, a repudiation 
of Judge Davies' new rule, and the destruction of the 
legal ground on which Mr. Stanton had rested his case. 
He had not read the whole case, evidently, and the re- 
porter had not, but made up the syllabus from the opin- 
ion of the chief justice. The production of the ruling 
of the court thus brought out, was a shock from which 
Stanton and his friends did not recover. The court ex- 
amined the book, as did opposing counsel, when Mr. 
Garfield was directed to proceed with his argument. Of 
course he had now to show that, under the rule of the 



THE LAWYER. 371 

Lispinard case, INIr. Campbell was competent to make a 
will. The instrument was in Mr. Campbell's own hand. 
It recited the alleged settlement with the elder children, 
which the husbands denied. Other curious testimony 
came in to sustain the will, all of which was used with 
ingenious effect. The speech placed the case beyond 
reply, which a Wheeling lawyer attempted. The court 
sustained the will, and the case was ended. 

ISIr. Garfield received nothing for his great work in the 
Milligan case; not even the thanks of the liberated 
men ever reached him. For the Campbell case he re- 
ceived a fee of three thousand five hundred dollars. 

The three cases of the New York Life Insurance com- 
pany with Taite and others, the same with Steatham and 
others, and the same with Dudley et al., all tried in 
the supreme court of the United States, in which Geiieral 
Garfield appeared for the company, were of the first im- 
portance, as they settled very grave principles. In the 
first case he was associated with Judge Curtiss, one of 
the most eminent men of the American bar, and by 
many ranked as the first lawyer. The insured were 
residents of the rebel States, war intervened, all com- 
munication was cut off, the annual premiums for re- 
newals were not paid. Suits were brought, after the war, 
and after the death of the parties, to enforce the policies 
against the company. 

What was the effect of the war on the contract of 
insurance? The question was new and difficult. Its 
discussion would find precedents and analogies going a 
good way, and then the advocate and court were remitted 



372 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

to the reasonableness and rightfulness of the case under 
the circumstances. Other contracts and marine insur- 
ance were the helps and guides, but they stopped short. 
So the decisions of the supreme court, settling the pow- 
ers of agents, under appointments before the war, came 
in, also cotton cases decided in the same court. 

On the first trial of the first case, the court were 
equally divided. Before the second, and trial of the 
other cases. Judge Curtiss died, and other counsel were 
employed in the other cases, to aid Garfield. The prep- 
aration of the briefs was his entire work, and my reader 
now knows how he performed the labor. He also made 
the principal arguments. His examination of authorities 
was discriminating and accurate. No case escaped him. 
His argument upon general principles was cogent and 
convincing. Chief Justice Waite complimented him upon 
the principal one, and the court accepted and followed 
him in the decision, to the extent, that the contract of in- 
surance was inoperative from the date of the war. His 
grasp and handling of the cases and principles involved 
were able and lawyer-like, which is about the highest 
praise lawyers ever award each other. He was paid five 
thousand dollars for these trials. 

I have thus called attention to three or four cases of 
exceptional importance, to show something of Mr. Gar- 
field's ability and learning as a lawyer, and his method 
of dealing with great and important issues. The subject 
has little interest for the average reader. 

In running my eye over the calendar of the supreme 
court I observe that he tried the case of the United 



THE LAWYER. 373 

States vs. Henderson in 1872 ; a Montana case in 1873 ; 
an important railroad case also the same year, and that 
the number of his cases have increased since. He has 
in that court tried more than twenty cases of greater or 
less importance, which under the circumstances of his 
immense labors in the house, in the great canvasses of 
which scarce a word has been said, and the fact that he 
had no connection with lawyers anywhere by which cases 
have been placed in his hands, and that through the 
country he is not known as a lawyer, is really a very 
remarkable practice. It may be said also that of the 
many lawyers distinguished at their home bars very 
few who become members of congress are ever admit- 
ted to the supreme court, and the appearance of 
any of them there is phenomenal. Edmunds is occa- 
sionally there, Carpenter very often; Freelinghuysen and 
Bayard, I have seen there ; Conkling, rarely. The nu- 
merous and important cases from New York are tried by 
the lawyers who managed them in the State courts. But- 
ler is there a good deal ; Hoar, rarely. Garfield at one 
time had seven cases on the calendar, among them the 
famous Goodyear patent case. I remember that he went 
to Mobile and tried an important case and was paid five 
thousand dollars for it. He has appeared in the supreme 
court of Pennsylvania and several times in the supreme 
court of the District of Columbia. He must have de- 
rived from his law practice in these later years over 
twenty-five thousand dollars. He would be a power be- 
fore juries. In most all lines of law he has been thor- 
oughly tested, in none has he fallen bulow the first class. 



374 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

It never has required in this country, nor in England, 
the greatest intellect to make the greatest lawyer in either 
country. Very high mental excellence in certain direc- 
tions is requisite, with great and steady labor. Garfield's 
intellect, as I believe, fairly takes place with the rare few 
— the very best; certainly his is one of the largest and 
broadest minds that have appeared among us. Could it 
be diminished in some directions it would be phe-' 
nomenal. Cut away one half and he would be a genius. 
He could easily become a great lawyer with a supera- 
bundance for literature, philosophy and metaphysics, 
where he early excelled. 



CHAPTER II. 

MISCELLANEOUS WORK. 
Extent and Character. — American Review. — Atlantic— A Century in 
Congress. — General Thomas. — Almeda Booth. — Dr. Robison. — 
Eliza Mother. 

There remains a mass of other labors scattered through 
all these years, contributions to the press in various forms, 
essays, addresses on various occasions, strewn over my 
table, enough in themselves to have made a reputation, 
had they not been smothered and lost sight of in the 
grave and great labors of their author, in the National 
house of representatives. Some mention must be made 
of these — some bits to show their flavor. They fall into 
three groups, or two and a miscellany. There are 
those connected with his thought and service in the 
house. His is eminently a productive mind, constantly 
searching out the foundation, the essential philosophy of 
things, and while doing hard, practical work, there came 
to be large outside margins, and deep lower reservoirs of 
knowledge, lying all about, and under the product of his 
labor. From these resources he has drawn, as time or 
call permitted or required. Of this class is his paper in 
the Republic^ a political and party magazine, published at 
Washington, and edited by the late Judge Edmunds, a 
practical, sagacious mind. It appeared in July 1873, and 
is a concise re-presentation of the subject of public ex- 

375 



376 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

penditure, and the underlying reasons which should con- 
trol them — with a subject which the reader is supposed 
now to have some familiarity. 

Mr. Speaker Randall had engaged to furnish the North 
Americati Review a paper contrasting Republican extrav- 
agance and profligacy with Democratic economy and vir- 
tue, and Mr. Garfield was asked to furnish a Republican 
counterpart, after the polyglot style of the Revietv — to 
give all sides and decide nothing, in the spirit of the 
luminous Story in his law books. Garfield promised the 
paper. Mr. Randall withheld his — never furnished it, and 
later Garfield's appeared under the title of "Appropria- 
tion and Misappropriation," where the reader will find 
the amplest opportunity of comparing, and contrasting the 
merits of the great parties in this important field of ad- 
ministrative law and policy, as set forth by Mr. Garfield. 
So also in Mr. Blaine's symposium in the same journal, 
a concise paper upon negro suffrage, and his two remark- 
able papers on the army of the United States in the Re- 
vieiv in the spring of 1878. 

His study of the history of our National legislation, 
affecting our industries and resources, the currency, tariff, 
and revenues, with his eager, grasping mind, which 
caught the spirit and life of what produced and con- 
trolled the vast and variegated volume of enactment, 
made him familiar with the men who legislated and their 
methods. Living, as he had for so many years, in the 
house, and becoming possessed of its unwritten legends 
and traditions, there grew up in his mind the idea of 
presenting a summary of the origin of congress, as an 



MISCELLANEOUS WORK. 377 

entity, and a rapid sketch of it as a thing apart, yet hving 
and continuing, with historic incidents, and mention of 
prominent men, whose hves illustrated it, with some ref- 
erence to its customs and habits. The result thus far 
was his paper, "A Century in Congress," in the Atlatific 
for July, 1S77. Something more than a translated flavor 
of this admirable performance is due to the reader. 
Here are a few paragraphs following the happy opening : 

THE AMERICAN CONGRESS. 

Indeed, the history of Hberty and union in this countrj-, as developed 
by the men of 1776 and maintained by their successors, is inseparably 
connected with- the history of the National legislature. Nor can they 
be separated in the future. The Union and the congress must share 
the same fate. They must rise or fall together. 

The germ of our political institutions, the primary cell from which 
they were evolved, was the New England town; and the vital force, the 
informing soul of the town was the town-meeting, which, for all local 
concerns, was king, lords, and commons in one. It was the training- 
school in which our fathers learned the science and the art of self-gov- 
ernment, the school which has made us the most parliament.ary people 
on the globe. 

The idea of a congress on this continent, sprang from the necessity 
of union among the colonies for mutual protection, and the desire for 
union logically expressed itself in an inter-colonial representative as- 
sembly. Every such assembly in America has been a more or less 
marked symbol of union." 

This seminal idea he rapidly traces to the origin and 
growth of the union as it takes form in action, in con- 
ventions. This action, as in most instances of human 
progress, seemed an accidental blind groping for present 
expediencies, rather than the result of sagacious forecast. 
There is a large outlook in the paper, showing wide read- 
ing and a complete mastery of the causes which led to 



378 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

the convention of the first congress proper. There was 
the meeting of the governors at Albany, in 1748, fol- 
lowed by the congress at Albany, of 1754. This was 
made up of twenty-five commissioners, of whom Franklin 
was one. There, in some way, the great words union 
and congress found utterance. One would like to know 
who discovered them. The second convention which 
called itself a congress first, was held at New York, in 
June, 1765, to devise means of resistance to the stamp 
act, and we see the great names of the pre-revolutionary 
time. Here was the genesis of things. 

There for the first time James Otis saw John Dickinson; there Gads- 
den and Rutledge sat beside Livingston and Dyer; there the brightest 
minds of America joined in the discussion of their common danger and 
common rights. The session lasted eighteen days. Its deliberations 
were most solemn and momentous. Loyalty to the crown, and a 
shrinking dread of opposing established authority, were met by the 
fiery spirit which glowed in the breasts of the boldest thinkers. Amidst 
the doubt and hesitation of the hour, John Adams gave voice to the 
logic and spirit of the crisis when he said: "You have rights ante- 
cedent to all earthly governments; rights that cannot be repealed or 
restrained by human laws; rights deri\ed from the great Lawgiver of 
the universe." * « » « * 

THE CONTINENTAL CONGRES.S OF I774. 

Xine more years of supplication and neglect, of ministerial madness 
and stubborn colonial resistance; bring us to the early autumn of 1774, 
when the Continental congress was assembling at Philadelphia. This 
time the alarm had been sounded by New York, that a sister colony 
was being strangled by the heavy hand of a despotic ministry. The 
response was immediate and almost unanimous. From eleven colonies 
came the foremost spirits, to take counsel for the common weal. From 
the assaulted colony came Samuel and John Adams, Gushing and 
Paine. They set out from Boston in August, escorted by great num- 
bers as far as Watertown. Their journey was a solemn and trium- 



MISCELLANEOUS WORK. 379 

phant march. The men of Hartford met them with pledges to abide 
by the resolution which congress might adopt. 

New Haven welcomed and Roger Sherman addressed 
them. Refreshed by a visit to the grave of Bidwell, one 
of the king-killers, they went on to their reception by 
the Sons of Liberty at New York. There came Jay> 
and Livingston, Sherman, Deane and Hopkins; from 
the far South, Washington, Henry, Lee, Gadsden, and 
Rutledge. In congress sat fifty-five men and eleven colo- 
nies — colonies, archaic word, about to become 

"Nameless here forevermore. " 

Then follows an account of congress of 1775; con. 
gress of revolt and independence with a resume of the 
congressional life of the old war, full of the old names 
and the mention of great events. The paper is very 
fascinating. Room for the sketch of the first congress 
under the constitution must be had. 

This brings us to the congress of the constitution, which began its 
first session at New York on the fourth of March, 1789. 

Fears were entertained that some of the States might neglect or 
refuse to elect senators and representatives. Three States had hitherto 
refused to adopt the constitution. More than a month passed before 
a quorum of the senate and house appeared in New York ; but on the 
sixth of April, 1789, a quorum of both houses met in joint session and 
witnessed the opening and counting of the votes for president and 
vice-president by John Langdon. Having dispatched the venerable 
Charles Thomson, late secretary of the old congress, to Mount Ver- 
non to inform Washington of his election, the new congress addressed 
itself to the great work required by the constitution. The three ses- 
sions of the first congress lasted in the aggregate five hundred and 
nineteen days, e.\ceeding by more than fifty days the sessions of any 
subsequent congress. It was the high duty of this body to interpret 
the powers conferred upon it by the constitution, and to put in motion 



380 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

not only the machinen- of the senate and house, but the more com- 
plex machinery of the executive and judicial departments. 

It is worth while to obser\-e with what largeness of comprehension 
and minuteness of detail the members of that congress studied the 
problems before them. While Washington was making his way from 
Mount Vernon to New York, they were determining with what cere- 
monials he should be received, and with what formalities the intercourse 
between the President and the congress should be conducted. A j oint 
committee of both houses met him on the Jersey shore, in a richly 
fiUTiished barge, and, landing at the battery, escorted him to the resi- 
dence which congress had prepared and furnished for his reception. 
Then came the question of the title by which he should be addressed. 
The senate insisted that " a decent respect for the opinion and practice 
of civilized nations required a special title," and proposed that the 
President should be addressed as "his highness, the President of the 
United States of America, and protector of their liberties. " At the 
earnest remonstrance of the more republican house, the senate gave 
way, and finally agreed that he should be addressed simply as ' ' the 
president of the United States." 

It was determined that the President should, in person, deliver his 
"annual speech," as it was then called, to the two houses in joint ses- 
sion; and that each house should adopt an address in reply, to be de- 
livered to the President at his official residence. 

These formalities were manifestly borrowed from the practice of the 
British parliament, and were maintained until near the close of Jeffer- 
son's administration. 

Communications from the e.xecutive departments were also to be 
made to the two houses by the heads of those departments in person. 
This custom was unfortunately swept away by the Republican reaction 
which set in a few years later. 

Among questions of ceremony were also the rules by which the 
President should regulate his social relations to citizens. Washington 
addressed a long letter of inquiry to John Adams, and to several other 
leading statesmen of that time, asking their advice on this subject. 

The great historic theme is further pursued, under the 
suggestive sub-titles of "Congress and the E.xecutive,' 



MISCELLANEOUS WORK. 35 1 

"Congress and the People," and the significant one of 
"Congressional Culture." 

One hopes ^h: Garfield will take this interesting sub- 
ject up in the later of time and give the world a book. 
With his sagacious perception and discrimination, his 
going ahvay to the foundation and building logically, his 
reverence for truth, his copious language and clear style, 
he certainly could write history, and of the highest order. 

There is also his masterly article on "The Currency 
Conflict," in the same magazine for February, 1876, of 
twenty compact pages, furnished at the request of the 
editor. So good a statement of the whole case, with his- 
torical references, and forceful argument, from his posi- 
tion, cannot be found in the copious literature of the 
subject, in space so narrow. 

All the utterances of the mind whose labors we have 
so slightly dealt with, upon any subject, are curious as 
well as valuable. One likes to see how things look to 
such an intellect. One wants to know how it deals with 
them and what are its estimates of them. One expects 
fresh, vigorous treatment, and looks for light. Here is 
an oration delivered at Ravenna, July 4, i860; "National 
Politics," at Warren, September, 1866; an address to 
the Geauga historical society; "Free Commerce between 
the States," in the house, in 1864, and might have been 
most profitably delivered anywhere. We cannot mention 
his addresses to literary societies. 

There is another class of productions. I hold in my 
hand two — "In Memoriam" addresses, and in view of 
my swollen copy, hesitate to open either. One is in- 



382 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

scribed "George H. Thomas;" almost a book, of fifty-two 
noble pages, delivered before the society of the army of 
the Cumberland, November 25, 1870, Garfield talking 
to his comrades of their great old commander. Some 
things from this without comment. Here is his sketch 
of the old hero, among the opening paragraphs: 

No line can be omitted, no false stroke made, no imperfect sketching 
done, which you, his soldiers, will not instantly detect and deplore. 
I know that each of you here present, sees him in memory at this mo- 
ment, as we often saw in life; erect and strong, like a tower of solid 
masonry; his broad, square shoulders and massive head; his abundant 
hair and full beard of light brown, sprinkled with silver; his broad fore- 
head, full face, and features that would appear colossal, but for their per- 
fect harmony of proportion ; his clear complexion, with just enough color 
to assure you of robust health and a well-regulated life; his face lighted 
up by an eye which was cold gray to his enemies, but warm, deep blue to 
his friends; not a man of iron, but of live oak. His attitude, form and 
features all assured you of inflexible firmness, of inexpugnable strength; 
while his welcoming smile set every feature aglow with a kindness that 
won your manliest affection. 

No human life can be measured by an absolute standard. In this 
world, all is relative. Character itself is the result of innumerable in- 
fluences, from without and from within, which act unceasingly through 
life. Who shall estimate the effect of those latent forces enfolded in 
the spirit of a new-born child — forces that may date back centuries 
and find their origin in the life, and thought, and deeds of remote 
ancestors — forces, the germs of which, enveloped in the awful 
mystery of life, have been transmitted silently from generation to 
generation, and never perish! All cherishing nature, provident 
and unforgetting, gathers up all these fragments, that nothing 
may be lost, but that all may ultimately reappear in new com- 
binations. Each new life is thus the "heir of all the ages," the 
possessor of qualities which only the events of life can unfold. The 
problems to be solved in the study of human life and character are, 



MISCELLANEOUS WORK. 383 

therefore, these: Given the character of a man, and the conditions of 
life around him, what will be his career? Or, given his career and sur- 
roundings, what was his character? Or, given his character and career, 
of what kind were his surroundings? The relation of these three fac- 
tors to each other is severely logical. From them is deduced all gen- 
uine history. Character is the chief element, for it is both a result and 
a cause — a result of influences and a cause of results. 

On the twenty-sixth page is this extract, summing up 
a perfect thing: 

In the presence of such a career, let us consider the qualities which 
produced it, and the character which it developed. We are struck, at 
the outset, with the evenness and completeness of his life. There were 
no breaks in it, no chasms, no upheavals. His pathway was a plane 
of continued elevation. 

A little further on is this : 

In such a career, it is by no means the leact of a man's achievments, 
to take his own measure, to discover and understand the scope and 
range of his own capacity. 

Did Garfield ever apply this rule to himself? 

To him (Thomas) a battle was neither an earthquake, nor a volcano, 
nor a chaos of brave men and frantic horses, involved in vast explo- 
sions of gunpiowder. It was rather a calm, rational concentration of 
force against force. It was a question of lines and positions; of weight 
of metal, and strength of battalions. 

I resolutely pass marked, great passages to the grand, 
simple close. 

To us, his comrades, he has left the rich legacy of his friendship. 
To his country and to mankind, he has left his character and his fame, 
as a priceless and everlasting possession. 

" O iron nerve to true occasion true! 
fallen at length that tower of strength 
Which stood four-square to all the winds that blew!" 

" His work is done ; 

But while the races of mankind endure, 



384 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

Let his great example stand 

Colossal seen of every land, 

And keep the soldier firm, the statesman pure, 

Till in all lands and through all human story, 

The path of duty be the way to glory." 

The other bears the name of Ahiieda Booth ! The 
reader may remember her ; a noble-souled, high-hearted, 
large-brained woman, with corresponding form, asso- 
ciated with Garfield's professor years. A great help of 
his in . many ways, worthy to associate with the largest 
and most generous nature on terms of equality. She 
was one of his first discoverers. She early penetrated 
that big-boyism that has ever surrounded him as with 
an atmosphere, making him seem the equal of common 
men only, or exceeding them mainly in mere quantity. 
Everybody ran to him, all wanted him, and he had what 
they wanted ; often thinking that they had only received 
their own back again, so generous and delicate was the 
alms bestowed. It was as the rendering back of an over- 
due debt, paid with excuses for the long delay. She early 
set her face against this waste, not of thought, mental 
property, but of himself, the fame and consideration his 
due, without which the common mind would never 
measure the immense distance between common men 
and him. "James I don't want everybody and anybody 
should feel, that they can have you, everywhere and any- 
where, not, that you will be exhausted or they will not 
be helped. You are to grow upwards up, and not spread 
yourself over a great surface." Wise, far-seeing woman 
that she was who would fence him about and protect 
his upward growth. 



MISCELLANEOUS WORK. 385 

I am not to sketch Miss Booth, worthy as she is to be 
drawn in even a glancing history of Garfield, but I show 
his estimate of her for the purpose of helping out a more 
complete picture of him, and of his many-form work. 
The address was delivered at Hiram college, June 2 2d, 
1876. The subject of it passed away December 15th, 
1875. Sweet and tender are his first words. 

Mr. President: You have called me to a duty at once most sad and 
most sacred. At every step of my preparation for its performance, I have 
encountered troops of thronging memories that swept across the field 
of the last twenty-five years of my life, and so filled my heart with the 
lights and shadows of their joy and sorrow that I have hardly been 
able to marshal them into order or give them coherent voice. I have 
lived over again the life of this place. I have seen again the groups of 
young and joyous students, ascending these green slopes, dwelling for 
a time on this peaceful height in happy and workful companionship, 
and then, with firmer step, and with more serious and thoughtful faces, 
marching away to their posts in the battle of life. 

And still nearer and clearer have come back the memories of that 
smaller band of friends, the leaders and guides of those who encamped 
on this training ground. On my journey to this assembly, it has 
seemed that they too were coming, and that I should once more meet 
and greet them. And I have not yet been able to realize that Almeda 
Booth will not be with us. After our great loss, how shall we gather 
up the fragments of the life we lived in this place? We are mariners, 
treading the lonely shore in search of our surviving comrades and the 
fragments of our good ship, wrecked by the tempest. To her, indeed, 
it is no wreck. She has landed in safety, and ascended the immortal 
heights beyond our vision. 

The sailor boy's figures of the sea! 

Then, with that elementary force of mind which al- 
ways finds or lays the foundations of things, he constructs 
the solid base of the beautiful structure of her life and 
character, which he builds. One all the time, as in the case 



386 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

of Thomas, can't help seeing the builder notwithstanding 
his effort to disappear. How many beautiful compari- 
sons he draws between her and others, so that those to 
whom she, like him, had made herself so common, that 
the power of estimating her was lost, could see and feel 
her true proportions. His is the rare gift of seeing and 
reading the real about him, to which the eyes of common 
men had been blind. How striking the contrast he 
draws between the second Adams and Lincoln, and 
what a masterly comprehension of both. Mark this just 
appreciation of woman's nature : 

Woman's nature is of finer fibre; her spirit is attuned to higher 
harmonies. "All dipped in angel instincts, " she craves, more keenly 
than man, the celestial food — the highest culture which earth and 
heaven can give; and her loss is far greater than his, when she is de- 
prived of those means of culture so rarely found in pioneer life. Suc- 
cess in intellectual pursuits, under such conditions, is tlie strongest 
possible test of her character. 

Then comes the rapid sketch of the pioneer life; 
of Ezra Booth, the father, whose life deserved a care- 
ful stud}'. One sees the young girl grow in all her 
various lovely ways, under his hand, till the catastrophe 
of her younger life, thus told: 

In the family of her nearest neighbor, she had formed the intimate 
acquaintance of Martyn Harmon, a young man of rare and brilliant 
promise. Like herself, he was an enthusiastic student. Ambitious of 
culture, he had pushed his way through the studies of Meadville col- 
lege, and was graduated with honor. He had given Almeda his love, 
and received in return the rich gift of her great heart. The day of 
their wedding had been fi.xed. He was away in Kentucky, teaching; 
while she was in Mantua, preparing to adorn and bless the home of 
their love. On the si.xth of March, 1848, he died of some sudden ill- 
ness, and was buried near Frankfort, Kentucky. 



MISCELLANEOUS WORK. 387 

Hers was an essentially great life, rounded in complete 
and just proportions, so far as it was permitted to reach, 
a life which required just such a man as he, whose hand 
sketched it, to justly appreciate and estimate it. There 
is a striking sketch of the work of Margaret Fuller, with 
which he contrasts that of Almeda Booth, with this con- 
clusion: 

Highly as 1 appreciate the character of Margaret Fuller, greatly as 
I admire her remarkable abilities, I do not hesitate to say that in no 
four years of her life did her achievements, brilliant as they were, equal 
the work accomplished by Miss Booth during the four years that fol- 
lowed her coming to Hiram. 

The judgment of a man endowed with a rare insight 
into the nature and character of men, and what is more 
unusual, of woman. 

Here is the living form of the woman. 

We shall never forget her sturdy, well-formed figure; her head that 
would have appeared colossal but for its symmetry of proportions; 
the strongly marked features of her plain, rugged face, not moulded 
according to the artist's lines of beauty, but so lighted up with intelli- 
gence and kindliness as to appear pqsitively beautiful to those who 
knew her well. 

The basis of her character, the controlling force which developed 
and formed it, was strength — extraordinary intellectual power. 

Here he acknowledges his indebtedness to her. 

On my own behalf, I take this occasion to say that for her powerful 
and generous aid so often and so efficiently rendered, for her quick and 
never-failing sympathy, and for her intelligent, unselfish and unswerv- 
ing friendship, I owe her a debt of gratitude and affection, for the pay- 
ment of which the longest term of life would have been too short. 

His close was fitting and tender. 

What a temptation to sketch in here, as a companion 



388 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

piece, the rough, strong figure of Dr. Robison, whose 
commanding voice, filling "all space," coming from 
those great lungs and admirable digestion, moves things 
by its quantity, on his theory that as rocks are lifted 
easier in water — so he " inundates" a weighty matter. Not 
all lung and voice; there are the granite foundations of a 
man, topped out with a mind practical, accurate, strong 
and forceful. A famous preacher of the Disciples, to 
whom Alexander Campbell was more than a hero, 
almost more than a prophet. He, too, was one of the 
first, if not the very first, discoverer of Garfield. What 
a picture is this of the doctor silently leading the callow 
youth on commencement day, away from the college 
into a sheltering thicket, and there with the young man 
kneeling before him, grimly and phrenologically hand- 
ling that great head, and then in suppressed thunder, 
declaring it a Daniel Webster head — a greater than 
Daniel — and solemnly dedicating the weeping youth to 
a grand career. After which, kneeling himself, he 
breathed a fervent prayer for his guidance, and laid his 
hand again on that head, now in benediction. The far- 
seeing doctor, tender and generous, had before opened 
his heart to the boy, now his door was opened also. 

Other striking forms arise. That Uncle Boynton, of 
the men and women who early come around to love, 
cherish and encourage, never to leave him after. He 
has never lost a friend. Ponder that. And of the 
nearer and dearer circle where he sits a crowned king, 
ruling and being ruled by the divine right of love. 
She who bore him, with her thin bent form, high 



MISCELLANEOUS WORK. 389 

brow and striking aquiline face, Eliza, great mother, 
wise as sweet, whose strength equals the sum of 
wisdom and sweetness, sitting ever at his right hand, as 
watchful and tender, as anxious now as m his boyhood. 
Silent she sits with pleased face when he utters a noble 
thought, reproving what to her is unworthy or un- 
seemly for him to say ; often enforcing her rebuke with 
her hand smartly on his cheek, as when a little boy; 
selecting choice and tender bits, or rare fruits, and 
transferring them to him, which he accepts with the 
pleased eager air of a boy receiving sugar plums. What 
a picture she would make with the delicate lines of 
character running and crossing, and which most men 
never see, well drawn — Eliza, rebuking the noisy plaudits 
of the unthinking crowd, and hiding in her heart the 
sincere words, the prophecies of ,,myboy," like Mary, 
silent and tender. These are not for my hand — never 
will be, nor yet the other — all the others who form this 
rare group of home and love. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE MAN. 
His Nature and Qualities. — Tlie Real Man. — The Man as he Appears. 

Scattered through my little volume are various esti- 
mates of some of the striking qualities, with references 
to the physical mould of James A. Garfield, where such 
mention seemed apt or asked to be noted down. My 
purpose mainly has been to translate to my countrymen 
my conception of the man as it exists in my own mind. 
Was there a great deal less of him, was he less symmet- 
rical, rounded and complete, less balanced, less perfect, 
one may say, so that some one of his great qualities 
stood out alone and strikingly, the labor would have been 
less, the result more certain. 

THE REAL MAN. 

In moulding him Nature had before her one or several 
of her grandest and noblest models. She did not stint 
him to a genius — she did not want a poet, a sculptor, a 
warrior, or merely a statesman, an engineer, or a discov- 
erer. For some purpose, or many, she wanted a man, as 
if to vindicate again to herself her own old, true concep- 
tion of a man, and she made him. She took no 
effete matter, worn by the long descent of a remarkable 
strain of men, but used new, fresh, abundant in quan- 
tity, of rare excellence of quality, all of equal fineness, 



THE MAN. 391 

and each part carried out in symmetrical proportion, 
large, generous, superabundant, not coarse, not porous, 
no gilding, but strong, solid, sweet all through — a 
primitive man who sees and thinks at first hand. 
Taking to himself all the thoughts, all the seeings, 
all the struggles of all other men, and testing them 
anew by his own seeings and thinkings, with the 
power of seeing all the significances of the common 
things around him, not before seen of others, finding 
new meaning in common words, and the meanings of 
many things before thought superfluous and without 
meaning, and so rejected, natural, fresh, vigorous, 
strong, and so in just and pure relations with primitive 
forces and ideas. Himself a force, simple and sweet as a 
child, to whom God is and the Heavens are — one who 
will never largely depart from the great simples, the spirit, 
the life and significance of things. A man whose self 
is the large and generous self, which embraces other 
selves whom he cherishes and keeps as parts of him, and 
so unconsciously advances his own self, whose vision 
is broad and high, and not marred by the small defects 
on which small-eyed men fasten to convict God of un- 
wisdom, or which to them so large are, that they hide 
God, and so the seers are atheists; but large, seeing the 
whole, its beauty and symmetry, and so sees. God every- 
where. A man with instinctive reverence for duty, 
which don't seem duty, but the thing is attractive to him 
which he does, because he loves to do it ; so it becomes 
love's work and is easy. It is not as the work of other 
men, but it gives pleasure to an eager mind, and is as 



392 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

Other men's pastimes are— done freshly with laughing brow 
and happy, jocund words. The things that others can- 
not do or produce with sweatings and groanings he does 
easily. He finds things out of place, incongruous, and 
searches out their true foundations, and puts them back 
in their places,and goes his way laughing, and other men 
take the credit. He laughs and don't care. It did not 
seem much to him, nothing to have praise for — so easy 
and natural for him to do. Things which needed to be 
done sought him out, and placed themselves docilely in his 
hands, as that of a master for whom they waited, and so 
being done, stay forever accomplished, and curiously and 
naturally he never thought of himself, or of any come-out 
to or for himself. He remained on the common ground of 
common men, doing their works and jobs without thought 
of pay or reward. He went about finding discouraged 
groups here and there, tugging and toiling over their in- 
evitable tasks, and they instinctively made way for him, 
and he did it, asking nothing; or they would push him 
to some new obstruction in their way, too huge for them, 
and he would remove it, not leading or caring to, though 
knowing better than another the true way, and with vastly 
more strength than others to clear it, and secure easy 
and certain advance. Loving all, serving all, asking only 
love in return, which no one withholds, and so he lives 
on the earth. 

AS HE APPEARS 

To most men, finely formed, of the full, large height; 
large, unusually large and well-formed head, and 
carried well; finely moulded limbs; of the rounded 



THE MAN. 393 

fullness of chest and limb, which fill the idea of just, 
not over bulk and proportion. Two defects: perhaps the 
neck lacks length; the feet seem too small for a man 
of his proportions. Hands good, manly, well-formed, 
strong, firm, forceful; shoulders broad; chest deep; face 
large — had to be for such a head; well-formed nose; 
splendid brows — turn back and study it; blue eyes; fine, 
light blond, diminishing hair ; soft, full lips ; well-formed 
chin, hidden by the curling blond whiskers; Saxon — 
Saxon or Norse without doubt. The best likeness ever 
made of him fronts my title page. So persistently does 
the common mind cling to the common of its own plane, 
cherish and cling to the common of Garfield's 
early life and surroundings, so insistent that he 
remain there amid the dwellers of the level, that 

men who would see and describe him to others, 
still see only that common in his person, manners and 
dress. He dresses as do other gentlemen. On his farm 
he is a farmer, frank and manly, as farmers are. His 
manners are the out-come, largely, of his hearty kindli- 
ness, and an inherent courtesy of heart and soul, that 
instinctively protects the feelings and sensibilities of 
others; courteous and dignified. The head is well borne; 
great natural majesty is its proper air, and the whole 
figure, when the man rises to his true proportions 
and position, is one of easy, simple dignity, unconsci- 
ous of what is its due. The man always gives more 
than he receives, in his common intercourse in life — giv- 
ing spontaneously, because he has it to give. The spirit, 
nature and essential man are fine-fibered, not coarse 



394 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

never could have been; never could have been vul- 
gar. It was all there in the rude-looking, youthful 
form of the poor canal boy; as real as in him to 
whom the eyes of a Nation are now turned. They 
are the same person. The boy did not escape and 
get new outside impressions, helps and gildings; en- 
abled to take on new powers, and grow to new life, 
by accretion, carrying within the vulgar canal hand. 
All there ever was in him, he received from Eliza Ballou 
and Abram Garfield. That ever essential thing has never 
been changed or hidden. It carried him naturally and 
easily along all the way he ever trod, growing, develop- 
ing, broadening and deepening, rising higher, and be- 
coming luminous, till a Nation has caught its rays 
and turns to it, to light up the high broadway of its own 
march. In the nature of things, Garfield can not be 
proud of the everlastingly dwelt-on canal, its malarias 
and swamps, its coarse, soiled associations, its foul smells 
and noisome surroundings. We must deplore them; all 
men deplore them ; one weeps that in any tender boys' 
helplessness and unseeing, there should be no hand to 
guide him to the something — anything better than that. 
The instinct so careful of the slightest hurt to the feel- 
ing of another, cannot but be tenderly sensitive to these 
early hurts and bruises of soul and spirit, which the 
thoughtless world in its noisy adulation so constantly re- 
minds him of It is too bad — that in his unsought eleva- 
tion he should hear nothing else. Had the young prince 
worn it as a disguise, he did not know he was a prince. 
The first thing which strikes all men, women and chil- 



THE MAN. 395 

dren alike, in the presence of General Garfield, is the 
frank, natural warmth and tenderness of his reception. 
Never was a man so approachable, nor a man so unre- 
served; nothing hidden, nothing kept back, nothing but 
self, which, as a thing to be cherished, has for him no 
existence. He has no secrets; nothing hidden, or to be 
hidden. It is impossible to betray him in this way. 
What he is he says; what he has, is any man's. His 
love and kindliness surround him with an atmosphere 
which every one feels who approaches him, magnetic, 
all-pervading; more constant than his shadow born of 
the sun without, this radiates from the never setting sun 
within. No other word expresses it but love, never- 
changing, all-embracing, and, like love, not seeing faults ; 
some times so strong as to overpower judgment, where 
he alone is concerned. Probably there is no better or 
more accurate judge of men than Garfield now living. 
Men do not impose on him; they never will. He sees 
their faults and likes them, maugre their failings. There 
is, however, another element of character and mind ever 
active, his just sense of responsibility, and accurate esti- 
mate of means to ends. He knows exactly what is 
needed for any certain purpose, and will never use that 
which does not fully meet all the requirements. His 
first qualification for an agent would be eminently that of 
moral fitness. No man of blemish would be trusted by 
him. The man himself he would love, could not help it, 
but the incongruity of using him with a known defect 
would ensure his rejection. 

There is something noticeable in these qualities of 



396 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

Garfield, not falling under any definition or general head 
—his sense of the fitness of things, his eye for proportion 
and symmetry, the artist element, which is very large, 
that which leads him to study and demand the congruous 
in all his own work, and in all the things about him. He 
once, in his inimitable way, told of meeting a young 
maiden of twelve, in the far-off Orange, pre-canal days, 
in some lonely way. She was draped in a badly worn 
and not less soiled "tow" frock, repaired in front with a 
large flannel patch. Barefoot she was, this maiden of 
twelve, and over her sun-burned face she wore a light 
silk veil. The bare feet kissed the earth harmoniously. 
The woolen and coarse linen were a matter of necessity, 
which he allowed for, and not unseemly, but the veil — 
that veil, with that dress, and the bare feet, struck him 
violently as incongruous. The unconscious child went 
her barefooted way. Her image dwelt not in the boy's 
heart, but brain, an idea, a form of incongruity, always 
ready to suggest comparisons. "This is a patch-frocked, 
bare- footed girl, with a veil." "This is my barefooted, 
tow-frodked girl's veil," became an oft mental observa- 
tion upon his own work. This sense of the congruous 
finally compelled him to have the top line of the fence 
in front of his Mentor home reduced to a right line, 
without reference to the modest swell of the ground on 
which it stood. There was also the important question 
of the color of a screening lattice, between the floor of 
the veranda and the ground. What should it be? Then 
followed an original disquisition upon colors, and the 
congruous. There was a law, which, when deduced, 



THE MAN. 397 

would direct the waiting painter in the weighty matter of 
this lattice. It must not offend the eye by incongruity. 
It was a lattice near the ground. Its purpose and 
position must, allowing for one or two other things, 
control its color. Everybody would know what it 
was. It was not a foundation, nor a part of the build- 
ing ; nor yet a blind for a window, but a screen to hide 
an unseemly opening — a gap. It must do that and 
please the eye, with reference to all the surroundings. 
This sense of fitness and proportion is a habit of the 
mind, a quality of the man, referring to the moral and 
intellectual, as to the physical world, and is a governing 
law. It may be a real instinct, a necessity which com- 
pels him to find foundations for everything, and build 
with such infinite care. No faulty, imperfect material, 
stick, brick or stone, has the least chance for use any- 
where. 

Next to the magnitude of the intellect, so often men- 
tioned, is its many-sidedness. Roundness and complete- 
ness, without angles, better express it. We have seen 
that it is eminently original, from the aptitude with which 
it finds newness and freshness in common things, a better 
test of originality than any eccentric plunge into the 
unknown, in search of the uncertain. Yet, while thus 
original, it tests and corrects its thought, by all the lights, 
a comparison with all the methods and models known 
to history and human experience. These, alway used 
in subordination and as aids, test helps. The union of 
these mental qualities is rare. The great original mind, 
usually so strong and conscious of its creative power, 



398 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

whose Structures, so near that thej' seem to dwarf and 
discountenance the remote edifices of others, even in the 
absence of egoism, and they seem of no account. Secure 
in itself, it seldom seeks aid. We found in the summing 
up of Part First, that Garfield lacks egoism, and hence 
always under-estimates himself, and his work. So he 
docilely and modestly looks for and accepts all help from 
all hands and lands, old and new. 

There is also the union of the povvers of a rare 
memory, with the productive faculties of creating, 
not often witnessed save among those who build of 
borrowed material, which he does not. His quotation 
from Tennyson, on the first anniversary of Lincoln's 
death, will be remembered. When called to pronounce 
the first commemorative oration at Arlington, he wrote 
with much care — a rare thing with him, the entire adr 
dress. Later he revised and cut it down, and thus im- 
proved it. Then he laid it by, intending to read it. He 
did not see it again until on his way to Arlington for its 
delivery, when he hastily ran it over. At Arlington were 
fifteen thousand living and fifteen thousand of the dead 
to confront him, with the three thousand or four thou- 
sand flags of all nations and people. The President, 
cabinet, and foreign ministers were there. He had never 
attempted to read but once or twice. He would not 
read to these. He arose, full ofv his theme, and 
launched himself boldly on outspread pinion of free, 
happy, and seemingly spontaneous speech. It was taken 
by the reporters. Friends afterward compared it with the 
two, the original and the amended written copies. It 



THE MAN. 399 

was found identical with the last. It was, after all, an 
unconscious production of the wonderful memor}'. 

His is an intellect of great creative power, capable of 
quarrying a mountain and throwing up a temple in a 
single day. Every great monolith would be polished 
and inscribed with classic legend, the whole chastely 
garlanded by fancy, and bearing rare flowers of poetry. 
It is a wonderful mind, wonderful and masterful, whose 
masterfulness, in its unconsciousness, yet wins by its 
modesty and unostentatious riches. It is curious, with 
the warmth and ardor of temperament of the man, this 
mind is eminently conservative, as all great balanced in- 
tellects must be. In all his utterances, is there a suspi- 
cion of the visionary? Calm, self-sustained, lie never 
labors to a height whence, abandoning himself to 
impulse, he throws himself in soaring eccentric flight. 
He must always bear himself with himself, and then he 
is calm and self-sustained. 

One likes to know the methods of such a man. 
Strong and healthy, nourishing food and good measures 
of rest are necessary for him. He must have plenty of 
rich red blood. His power of work can be estimated by 
the hints and glances rather than a full survey we have 
taken of it. He seldom, almost never, writes a speech. 
He walks as he thinks, and thinks in words which he 
speaks aloud, accompanying the expressive parts with 
the swing of that left hand, the gift of Eliza Ballou. 
The heads of these extemporized speeches he notes, 
and when the whole subject is thus rolled into com- 
pass and well in hand, it is laid away for its hour of 



400 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

use. Language — all words — comes when needed. The 
thought well mastered instinctively finds its own just 
foundation, and the word - structure springs spontane- 
ously into just and enduring structures. Would be 
greatly admired for their beauty and often majesty, did 
not men find them so solid, roomy and useful in prac- 
tical life. As a public speaker, an orator, he stands fully 
with the very first of his time. He never declaims. 
Happy, copious, strong, massive, finished, aUve and leap- 
ing with the throb and pulse of great thought, his speech 
flows full with human sympathy and tenderness. What- 
ever he says and does is full of the great-heartedness of 
the man. 

He is an actor born, with great facial power and a 
mimetic talent which enables him to reproduce the 
voice and manner of most living men. I am not aware 
that he has ever availed himself of this in public. Hints 
of it may have escaped him. One wants to see him at 
home, live with him, so as to be certain of his happiest 
times, at his own table, or wherever it comes. There, 
too, one should hear him, to have an accurate idea of 
his force and power as an orator. There where he mo- 
mentarily gives himself into the hands of a mighty emo- 
tion or some grotesque fancy, to be reproved perhaps by 
the admonitory hand of maternal Eliza. 

On one of these times he once uttered an eulogium of 
Grant in the wilderness. The great general was sitting 
on a log in the woods, smoking, with his staff around him, 
while his army was executing a great decisive movement. 
Suddenly there dashed up an officer from a remote com- 



THE MAN. 401 

mander of a corps, staggering under the very weight of 
the message he bore, and announced that the whole rebel 
army was executing a simultaneous movement that 
would place it successfully in Grant's rear with the most 
awful consequences. All men were aghast. The Gen- 
eral removed his cigar, and calmly directed him to 
re-state his message, which he did. An instant's re- 
flection ! That wonderful brain which planned all, knew 
all, knew better what was happening than a skilful gen- 
9ral who actually saw it. He quietly answered " I don't 
believe it." Let the movement go on." " That," said 
the general, who with wonderful power had pictured 
the whole thing, the messenger, the unmoved Grant, the 
fright and terror produced on others — " That was 
Godlike," and then as the idea of the wonderful pres- 
cience grew on him, so passing the boundaries of 
human knowledge, partaking of the quality of the 
Highest, with a face whose expression culminated, he 
brought his mighty arm down with a grand sweep — 
" That was God !" Never, as I believe, were three 
words of any language uttered with such prodigious effect. 
Never before did the whole man so deliver, so discharge 
his whole self Men and women's eyes were on the glow- 
ing face, saw the descending hand, but the boldness and 
grandeur of the climax could not be calculated. The 
emotions produced are incommunicable. Even pious 
Eliza was overwhelmed, and the awful, the almost pro- 
fane boldness of the figure, passed unreproved even by 
her. However great, and wherever great, he is greatest 
and best at home. 



402 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

He puts himself well on paper. His purely literary 
labors are characterized by the limpid unconsciousness 
of his style, and the simple, compact vigor of his sen- * 
tences. He uses words on paper as any one who recalls 
the club of child critics, must know he would. In work of 
this sort so sure is he of himself, that he finishes each 
page as he goes, and when the last is written the article 
is done. And yet he sometimes finds himself halting on 
the threshold of a sentence that won't form itself, nor 
let him pass it, and there he stops until it yields. 

He never leaves anything in his rear. He who 
searched for the lowest beginning place in boyhood, 
never has to go back to finish up or rebuild. How deep 
and ineradicable was that first love for the sea, is shown 
by his constant return to the visions of a sailor-bo)', 
whence he draws more figures for his speeches than from 
all other sources. 

Here I linger a moment to recall the half-limned pic- 
ture of two years ago, in Part First of this little history. 
It seemed to me then, that the changes in his life were 
produced by extraneous causes, and were not due at all 
to any plan of his own. The instances in proof of this 
have multiplied. Things which wanted him have come 
and taken him. He was willing to receive the senator- 
ship — would not go to seek it. Having received that, 
he wanted, as many did for him, his six full years in the 
senate. This which threatens to intervene was fortuitous 
— came at the least prematurely. It came as other things 
have alway come to him, and whatever attends its com- 
ing, it was unsought and in a way unwelcome. 



THE MAN. 403 

That Other thing, strongly marked in my study of him, 
was his remarkable growth upon the public. This is 
certainly to go on unchecked as it has gone. He is a 
primitive man, standing on the earth, with God and 
Heaven over him ; with mother, wife, and children about 
him; the first, oldest, the everlasting helps of mortal 
man. With these, whatever happens, he will go on de- 
veloping and growing, until Americans and the world 
recognize him in many ways the largest of his countrymen. 

Here these slight labors end. I cannot more prop- 
erly conclude them than with his speech at Painesville, 
July 3, iSSo, at the unveiling of the soldiers' statue. 
After the programme of addresses and reports was 
concluded by the very able oration of ex-Governor 
Cox, there came from ten thousand voices a com- 
pelling call for General Garfield, who sat among the 
invited guests. A moment's hesitation, with the old 
instinct of foundation and construction, and the ever- 
present spirit of the young teacher aroused, he arose, and 
with all his great advantages of person and voice, quite 
at their best, he said : 

Fellow citizens: I cannot fail to respond on such an occasion and in 
sight of such a monument, of such a cause, sustained by such men. 
While I have listened to what my friend, [General Cox], has said, two 
questions have been sweeping through my heart. One was, "WTiat 
does the monument mean?" and the other, "What will the monument 
teach?" 

Let me try to ask you for a moment to help me answer — "What 
does this monument mean?" Oh! the monument mean^ a world of 
memories, a world of deeds, a world of tears and a world of glory. 
You know, thousands know, what it is to offer up your life to the coun- 
try, and that is no small thing, as every soldier knows. Let me put a 



404 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

question to you. Suppose your country in the embodied form of Ma- 
jestic Law should stand up before you and say, ' ' I want your life, come 
up on this platform and offer it," how many would walk up before that 
Majestic Presence and say, "Here am I; take this life and use it for 
your great needs." And yet almost two millions of men made that 
answer, and the monument stands yonder to commemorate their ans- 
wer. That is one of its meanings. But, my friends, let me try you a 
little further. To give up life is much ; for it is to give up wife, and 
home, and child, and ambition, and almost all. Let me test you this 
way; suppose that Majestic Form should call out to you and say, "I 
ask you to give up health, and drag yourself, not dead, but half alive, 
through a miserable existence for long years, until you perish and die 
in your crippled and hgpeless condition." To volunteer to do that 
calls for a higher reach of patriotism and self-sacrifice; thousands of 
our soldiers did that. That is what our monument means also. 

But let me ask you to go one step further. Suppose your country 
should say, "Come here on this platform, and in my name and for my 
sake consent to be idiots, consent that your brain and intellect shall be 
broken down into hopeless idiocy,' for my sake." How many could be 
found to make that venture? and yet thousands did that with their 
eyes wide open to the horrible consequence. Let me tell you that one 
hundred and eighty thousand of our soldiers were prisoners of war, 
and many, when death was stalking, when famine was climbing up 
into their hearts, and when idiocy was threatening all that was left of 
their intellects, the gates of their prison stood open for them if they 
would just desert their flag and enlist under the flag of the enemy. 
Out of one hundred and eighty thousand, not two per cent, ever re- 
ceived a liberation from death, starvation, idiocy, or all that might 
come to them, but they took all these horrors and sufferings in prefer- 
ence to deserting the flag of their country and the glory of its truth. 
Was ever such measure of patriotism reached by man on this earth 
before? That is what your monument means. 

By the subtle chemistry that no man knows, all the blood that was shed 
by our brothers, all the lives that were devoted, all the grief that was 
felt, at last crystallized itself into granite and rendered immortal the 
great truths for which they died. It stands there to-day — and that is 
what your monument means. 



THE MAN. 405 

Now, what will the monument teach? I remember a story of one of 
the old conquerors of Greece, who, when he traveled in his boyhood 
over the battle-fields, and saw trophies, the trophies set up by the con- 
queror, said: "These trophies of Miltiades will never let me sleep." 
Why? Something had taught him a lesson he could never forget; and, 
fellow-citizens, that silent sentinel that crowns your granite column will 
look down upon the boys that shall walk the streets generations to 
come, and will not let them sleep when their country calls. From 
his granite lips will sound out a call that the sons of Lake county 
will hear after the grave has covered us all and our immediate children. 
That is the teaching of your monument — that is the lesson. Its lesson 
is the endurance of what we believe — its lesson of sacrifice for what we 
love — the lesson of heroism for what we mean to sustain, and that 
lesson cannot be lost upon a people like this. It is not a lesson of 
revenge, it is not a lesson of wrath, it is a grand, sweet lesson of the 
immortality of truth, that we hope will soon cover like the Schekina of 
light and glory, all parts of this Republic from the lakes to the Gulf I 
once entered a house in old Massachusetts where over its door were 
two crossed swords — one was the sword carried by the grandsire of its 
owner on the field of Bunker Hill, the other was the sword carried by 
the English grandsire of the wife, on the same field and on the other 
side of the conflict. Under these crossed swords in restored harmony 
and domestic peace lived a happy, contented and free family in the 
light of our Republican liberties; and I trust the time is not far distant 
when under the crossed swords and the locked shields of America, 
North and South, our people will sleep in peace, rise in liberty, and 
live in harmonv under our flag of stars. 



Chester A, Arthur, 



OF NEW YORK. 



SKETCH OF HIS LIFE AND CHARACTER. 




Chestei^ A^Ai^Hui^,- 



CHESTER ALLAN ARTHUR. 



CHAPTER I. 

EARLY LIFE.— LEGAL CAREER. 

Place of Birth. — His Father a Learned Divine and Author. — His Rich 
Inheritance of Brains. — He Enters College and Graduates. — He 
Teaches School. — Studies Law and is Admitted to the Bar. — His 
Career as a Lawyer. — His Advocacy of Great Cases. — Appointed 
an Officer in the State Militia. — His Services During the Rebejllon. 

General Arthur's place of nativity is in the Green 
Mountain State. He was born in Fairfield, Franklin 
county, Vermont, October 5, 1830. He is the oldest of 
seven children, two sons and five daughters. Rev. Dr. 
William Arthur, a Baptist clergyman, g. distinguished 
scholar, and the author of several books of much liter- 
ary merit, was his father. The latter was a native of 
county Antrim, Ireland, and, having graduated at the 
college of Belfast, emigrated to America when but 
eighteen years of age. He died in Newtonville, near 
Albany, October 27, 1876? 

Dr. Arthur was a man of marked traits of character 
and endowed with a strong intellect, while his attain- 
ments were of the most scholarly kind. He rose to dis- 
tinction in the ministry, and, besides, acquired celebrity 

409 



4IO LIFE OF CHESTER A. ARTHUR. 

in the domain of authorship. His book on "Family- 
Names," has taken rank the world over as a standard 
work on the subject of which it treats, and as a valuable 
contribution to English erudite literature. From 1855 
to 1863 he was pastor of the Calvary Baptist Church of 
New York City, where he was accounted among the 
ablest clergymen of the metropolis. ■ Such, in brief, was 
the father of the subject of this biography. 

His mother, whose maiden name was Malvina Stone, 
being no less richly endowed. General Arthur inherited 
talents of the highest order. In his early boyhood he 
showed an unusual aptitude in the acquisition of knowl- 
edge, and being fitted for college mainly under his 
father's valuable instruction, he surpassed other boys of 
his age in his studies. With a short term of school at 
Greenwich, Washington county, New York, he entered 
Union college, graduating therefrom at the early age of 
eighteen, with high honors. 

Leaving college, he determined to earn his own living, 
and obtain for himself a start in the world. For two 
years he taught school in his native State, and saved from 
his earnings the handsome sum of five hundred dollars. 
It is said, on the authority of Dr. A. Harlow, of Detroit, 
one of the early preceptors of General Garfield, that at 
one time during this period Mr. Arthur was in charge 
of a business college in Pawlet, Vermont, in which young 
Garfield, then fresh from the preparatory schools he had 
attended in Ohio, was engaged as professor of business 
and ornamental penmanship. This, if true, affords a 
remarkably interesting instance — the early and close con- 



EARLY LIFE. LEGAL CAREER. 4II 

nection of men destined long after to intimate associa- 
tion in a much more distinguished career. 

Our hero had now a good start in the world. 

What better capital could a young man have than he — 
youth (for he was only twenty), health, brains, learning, a 
disposition to economize, an ambition to succeed, and 
five hundred dollars in his pocket ? He went to New 
York city, and entered the office of the Hon. E. D. 
Culver, a former member of Congress. In two years 
more, or in 1853, he was admitted to the bar, and made 
rapid advancement in his profession. He took great 
interest in public affairs from the first, and bore an active 
part in the Free-soil agitation. In 1853 he formed a part- 
nership with his intimate friend and college room-mate, 
Henry D. Gardiner. They concluded they would seek 
their fortunes in the west, and spent several months on a 
western tour in search for an eligible place at which to 
locate. Disappointed in this, apparently, the twain re- 
turned to the city, and still retaining their intention of 
union in business, boldly and together ventured upon the 
uncertain sea of professional life in the great metropolis. 
Their talents, industry and social accomplishments soon 
brought them clients in abundance, and they entered 
upon a business career of high reputation and success. 

The interest early taken by young Arthur in the anti- 
slavery cause, has already been noted. In Mr. Culver's 
office he was in a good place for the cultivation and 
stimulus of this feeling; for Mr. Culver, as a member of 
congress from Pennsylvania, and in more private sta- 
tions, had taken an active part in the resistance of the 



412 LIFE OF CHESTER A. ARTHUR. 

time to the aggressions of slavery. The generous in- 
stincts of Mr. Arthur, too, forbade him from that man- 
ifestation of sympathy with the southern oligarchy and 
its arrogant demands, which was a prominent character- 
istic of nearly all the leading New York politicians of 
that day. He was thus adequately prepared for the 
treatment of his first really great case — that which has 
done him chief honor and mainly given him celebrity. 
About the time he began practice in the city, two slave- 
holders emigrating from Virginia to Texas, a married 
pair named Jonathan and Juliet Lemmon, went to New 
York to take steamer for their destination, bearing with 
them, as part of their property, eight negro slaves. It 
was a time when the public conscience throughout the 
North was peculiarly sensitive to the advent of human 
chattels upon the soil of a free State ; and they had not 
been long in the city before it was determined by some 
friends of freedom, that the question should be tested 
whether in the air of the Empire State a southern slave 
should breathe. Application was made to Judge Paine, 
of the superior court of New York City, for a writ of 
habeas corpus, to release the bodies of the Lemmon ne- 
groes from the custody of their reputed owners. Upon 
full hearing, in which the main question was whether the 
provisions of the Fugitive Slave law were of force and 
validity in the State of New York, Judge Paine decided 
that they were not, and that the so-called "slaves" 
should be released, with freedom to go whithersoever 
they would. The southern heart was fired by this decis- 
ion. All Virginia, especially, was in an uproar. The 



EARLY LIFE. LEGAL CAREER. 413 

legislature of the Old Dominion promptly took action to 
vindicate "Southern rights," against "Northern fanati- 
cism," and making the private interests of the Lemmons 
a matter of State concern, authorized and instructed the 
attorney-general of the Commonwealth to assist in the 
appeal of the case to a higher court. 

The ardent and able young lawyer, now the Repub- 
lican candidate for the vice-presidency, appeared upon 
the scene as attorney for the people, with a distinguished 
associate in the person of the Hon. William M. Evarts, 
at present secretary of state of the United States. 
Arthur prepared all the papers in the case, and with 
such care and efficiency that together with the logic and 
eloquence at the command of himself and his,eminent 
associate, the case was again won for the poor blacks and 
the cause of freedom. The Lemmons and the slaveocracy 
were not yet satisfied, however, and kept the case in 
court a number of years, it going finally to the Federal 
supreme court — the court of last resort in this country. 
Counsel of National renown had been employed by the 
slave-drivers in the previous contest, Mr. Henry L. Clin- 
ton being one of them; but in this ultimate arena 
Messrs. Evarts and Arthur had no less a personage to 
confront than Charles O'Connor, the leader, and Nestor 
of the New York bar. Undauntedly, however, they 
pressed their case, and again with success. The decis- 
ions rendered in the courts below were affirmed; the 
rights of a common humanity, as guaranteed by the dec- 
laration of independence, and the genius of our free 
institutions, were upheld; and the growing spirit of uni- 



414 LIFE OF CHESTER A. ARTHUR. 

versal freedom throughout the Repubhc received invalu- 
able encouragement. The thought of Emerson's immor- 
tal poem was embodied in the conclusions thus reached 
partly, if not mainly, through the arduous, well-directed 
labors of Chester A. Arthur: 

"United States! the ages plead, 
Present and past in under song, 
Go put your creed into your deed, 
Nor speak with double tongue. 

"For sea and land don't understand; 
Nor skies without a frown 
See rights for which the one hand fights, 
With the other stricken down. 

Another case of considerable note, in which the rights 
of the blacks were involved, was brought to a successful 
conclusion in their behalf, this time single-handed, by 
General Arthur. In 1856 a respectable colored woman 
by the name of Lizzie Jennings, was forcibly and with 
quite unnecessary violence ejected from a horse car on 
the Fourth Avenue line, in New York. She had paid 
her fare; but objection afterwards arising to her presence, 
simply on the ground that she was colored, the employes 
of the road seized upon and removed her to the street. 
Mr. Arthur's services were secured; he brought suit in her 
interest and the interest of a great principle; and after 
some litigation was successful in securing a verdict for 
her, and not alone for her,- but for a then despised and 
down-trodden race of humanity. The company was 
compelled by the court to pay Lizzie Jennings damages 
in the sum of five hundred dollars. 

This, be it remembered, was in 1856, the year of the 



EARLY LIFE. LEGAL CAREER. 415 

first Presidential campaign of the Republican party, 
when the hatred of the opposition toward the negro, 
particularly in New York and certain other large cities, 
was greatly intensified. Under these circumstances the 
victory won by Arthur and his client was the more sig- 
nificant and triumphant. The moral victory was yet 
greater than the legal success. Previous to that decision 
all the horse-car lines in New York City had refused to 
admit colored persons to their conveyances, except the 
Sixth avenue line which had a few cars, run at long 
intervals specially for their accommodation, they being 
excluded, as on other routes, from the cars occupied by 
white people. But the very day after the Jennings case 
was decided, the Fourth avenue company, instead of 
prolonging the contest through the higher courts, sensi- 
bly concluded to anticipate the growth of a generous 
public sentiment and the ultimate law of the land in 
behalf of civil rights, and allow people of color the 
same privileges on their carriages as had been enjoyed 
by others. Orders were issued accordingly, and the 
other street railway companies of the city were not long 
delayed in following the good example. Since then 
these public conveniences have been practically as free 
in New York City to passengers of the one race as to 
those of any other. So important and so distinguished 
then were the services rendered by the young lawyer, 
long before he was thirty years of age, to the great cause 
of humanity. 

The tremendous struggle between slavery and free- 
dom was now drawing on. The war of the rebellion 



41 6 LIFE OF CHESTER A. ARTHUR. 

was at hand. Upon the formation of the Republican 
party, Mr. Arthur, without hesitation or delay, had iden- 
tified himself with it. He was a delegate from Brook- 
lyn, the place of his residence, to the State convention 
held at Saratoga, at which, some hold, the Republican 
party was founded, and which was certainly the first 
Republican convention held in the State of New York. 
The value of his services to the party and the State soon 
came to be recognized, as well as his fitness, though 
without regular military education, to be useful in the 
organization of war ; and he was presently appointed to 
a post of honor as Judge Advocate of the Second bri- 
gade of the State militia. 

Upon the accession of his friend, the Hon. Edwin H. 
Morgan, to the gubernatorial chair, Mr. Arthur was as- 
signed the post of engineer-in-chief upon the governor's 
staff. These positions, however, were little better than 
honorary; but real work and responsibility were just 
ahead. Upon the outbreak of the Rebellion, he was 
advanced to the post of inspector-general, and soon 
again promoted, this time to the highly responsible and 
laborious office of quartermaster-general of the State 
militia. In both positions, but especially in the latter, 
he did eminently faithful, active, and useful service. As 
quartermaster-general, he had at his disposal vast sums 
of money, the awarding of immense contracts — the larg- 
est known to the military history of any land or age, the 
gift of an influence in securing innumerable offices of 
honor and emolument. His opportunities were well 
understood by those who had interests to be subserved. 



EARLY LIFE. LEGAL CAREER. 417 

He was much courted, and efforts were made by costly 
gifts to secure his good offices in behalf of certain indi- 
viduals or business houses. In one case, it is said, a 
leading house of clothiers made him the offer of a superb 
uniform free of expense to him; in another, a beautiful 
saddle, and other horse equipments, were actuHly sent to 
him by a printing establishment which had "expecta- 
tions." It is a fact which will redound forever to the 
honor of this candidate for the vice-presidency, and that 
will not be forgotten by the voters of the country in con- 
sidering the claims of the various aspirants to the second 
place in the government, that, contrary to the practice of 
not a few men in similar positions at that time, all pres- 
ents were promptly returned, and all offers of more, in- 
dignantly rejected by Mr. Arthur. He went out of this 
office, his friends assert, with its grand opportunities of 
personal emolument, poorer than when he entered it. 
One of his associates bears honorable testimony to his 
official virtue in these terms: 

"So jealous was he of his integrity that I have known instances 
where he could have made thousands of dollars legitimately, and yet 
refused to do it on the ground that he meant to be like Cassar's wife, 
'above suspicion.' His own words to me in regard to this matter 
amply illustrate his character, " If I had misappropriated five cents, 
and on walking down town saw two men talking on the corner together, 
I would imagine they were talking of my dishonesty, and the very 
thought would drive me mad. " 

His war accounts, although vastly larger than those of 
any other State, were in such good shape that they were 
the first to be examined, audited, and allowed by the 
general government; and they finally passed the treasury 



4l8 LIFE OF CHESTER A. ARTHUR. 

without the abatement of an item, while other States 
suffered the deduction of one to ten million dollars from 
their claims upon the United States for the organization 
and equipment of their contingents in the war. These 
facts speak volumes in favor of the fitness and ability of 
the subjAt of this biography as a public administrator 
or executive officer. 

Such a man, however, with his pronounced record as 
a patriot, a Republican, and an officer of the military 
establishment, was not likely to be needed under the ad- 
ministration of Governor Seymour; and when that gen- 
tleman came into power at Albany, General Arthur re- 
tired, and returned to his law practice. He united him- 
self with Mr. Ransom, a prominent member of the New 
York bar. Mr. Phelps, the district attorney of the 
United States for New York City, was subsequently add- 
ed to the firm, and then Mr. Knevals, the name and 
style of the partnership now, and for some years past, 
being Arthur, Phelps, Knevals & Ransom. The part- 
ners early secured large and lucrative business, much of 
it in the form of claims upon the government for serv- 
ices and supplies, and in drafting bills and promoting 
important legislation at Washington and Albany. Gen- 
eral Arthur, as the leading and most influential member 
of the firm, consequently spent much of his time in these 
cities, and was almost uniformly successful, by his high 
reputation and the correctness of his methods and pur- 
poses, in obtaining the ends he sought. The confidence 
reposed in him personally, and in his ability and legal 
learning, was so great at home that he was appointed foj- 



EARLY AND DOMESTIC LIFE. 419 

a time to the honors and emoluments of the place, as 
counsel to the board of tax commissioners of New York 
City, with ten thousand dollars per annum. He was not 
by it compelled to withdraw wholly from the business of 
his firm; and his position then, as a lawyer and man of 
business, was among the best in the city or the country. 
His ability to handle difficult and perplexing cases was 
universally acknowledged, and his counsel and aid in 
important litigation were in demand to the extent of his 
power to meet it. 



CHAPTER 11. 

OFFICIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE. 

Appointed Collector of the Port of New York.— His Removal.— The 
High Testimonials He Received.— His Nomination at Chicago.— 
His Personnel. — His Domestic Life. 

General Arthur had not been able to keep him- 
self altogether out of politics. Notwithstanding his re- 
tirement from office and engrossment in the duties of 
his profession, he constantly found time and inclination 
to participate in the movements of local and State 
politics, and to promote the interests of the Republican 
party. It was principally due to his efforts that the Hon. 
Thomas Murphy, collector of the port of New York, 



420 LIFE OF CHESTER A. ARTHUR. 

was elected to the State senate. This led to the resigna- 
tion of the former important office by Mr. Murphy, since 
he could not, under the law and practice governing the 
Federal offices, hold at the same time a place under the 
United States, and another under his own State. His 
resignation occurred November 20,' 187 1. General 
Arthur was not understood to be a candidate for the 
vacant place. Indeed, it is a notable characteristic of 
one who has reaped unusual and quite astonishing suc- 
cess in attaining and retaining high office, that Mr. Ar- 
thur has never been a professional office-seeker. With a 
spirit in partisan politics like that he displayed in the ser- 
vice of his country, he has not used his rare opportuni- 
ties for personal aggrandizement to secure place and 
power for himself Every office bestowed upon him, so 
far as is known to the public, from his first appointment 
to his nomination for the vice-presidency of the American 
Union, has come to him unsought. So in the case of 
the succession to Collector Murphy's place. President 
Grant, either from personal knowledge or from the advice 
of trusted friends who knew the worth and abilities of 
General Arthur, fixed his eyes upon him for the high 
place vacated by Mr. Murphy, and promptly appointed 
him to it. The general served through the four years of 
his appointment with his wonted masterly efficiency and 
close attention to the details of administration ; and at 
the close of his term had paid to him the added tribute of 
honor — one theretofore unprecedented in the checkered 
history of the New York custom house — of appointing 
him a second time to the charge of it. He was in each 



OFFICIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE. 42 1 

case promptly confirmed by the senate, and entered 
upon the performance of his duty with every prestige of 
success. Nor were the officers of the government or his 
friends disappointed by the result. 

The port of New York has never had a better col- 
■lector. So much integrity, business ability, legal at- 
tainments, and mental and moral power, have very 
rarely gone into that department of the public service. 
The statistics of the custom-house show the percentage 
of removals from office among his subordinates during 
his service of more than six years as collector of the 
port, averaged but two and three-fourths per cent, of 
the whole number per year, as against an average of 
about twenty-eight pei;cent. annually under the three 
collectors next preceding him, and an annual average of 
about twenty-four per cent, under all other collectors of 
the port except him from 1857 down. That is to say, 
to be more specific, of nine hundred and twenty-three 
officers of the custom-house in place before his appoint- 
ment as their chief, five hundred and thirty-one were 
still borne on the rolls of the service May i, 1877, 
nearly five years and a half after his original appoint- 
ment. This is a showing eminently gratifying to the 
friends of civil-service reform, since it gives hope that 
the era of sweeping changes in the perso?ind of public 
offices with every change of their several heads, or of the 
National administration, is passing away. Nor is this all 
that can be passed to the credit of General Arthur in 
the way of reform in the civil service, nowhere else more 
corrupt, at certain eras in our political historj' than in 



422 LIFE OF CHESTER A. ARTHUR. 

the New York custom-house. In that great institution 
one hundred appointments command salaries of two thou- 
sand dollars or more. There is, of course, great pressure 
for these places ; and the temptation is almost impossi- 
ble to be resisted, for a partizan or official chief to forget 
measureably the interests of the public service in his 
desire to relieve himself of this pressure and to reward 
his personal or political friends. General Arthur yielded 
to neither temptation. In every case — except two in- 
stances for which there were special reasons — where 
changes were made in these more lucrative and honora- 
ble positions, the vacancies were filled by the promotion 
of officers from lower to higher grades, on the recom- 
mendation of the heads of bureajas. This plan, as thus 
carried into practice, is invaluable in a department of 
the civil service so difficult and important as that of col- 
lecting the customs duties, in stimulating subordinate 
officers to a degree of fidelity and exactness hardly ever 
attainable, where the prospect of promotion on the 
ground of merit is not steadily held before the humble 
servitors of the government. 

Failure to remove a large percentage of his subordi- 
nates, however, or even promotion under the advice of 
the heads of bureaus, would hardly argue the efficiency 
and integrity of the New York custom-house. All these 
might be, possibly, and yet its administration be lament- 
ably weak, inefficient, and corrupt. Such was by no 
means the case, however, under the collectorship of Gen- 
eral Arthur. He gave, as before hinted, personal atten- 
tion to the details of the service and the conduct of its 



OFFICIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE. 423 

officials, introducing many reforms which affected rather 
the commercial and mercantile than the political inter- 
ests of the country. So strongly marked was his admin- 
istration of the customs service in New York, by the 
very qualities which should characterize it, that, when 
his removal was threatened in 1878, a remonstrance 
against it was signed by nearly every importing merchant 
in the collection district, as well as by all prominent 
members of the bar of the city, and by every judge of 
every one of its courts. Such a testimonial as this has, 
it is safe to say, never been granted to another man in 
public life, particularly to one in his difficult and delicate 
position. In addition to this, two special committees, 
appointed at Washington for the purpose, instituted 
close, searching investigation into the affairs of the cus- 
tom-house during his leadership, and each reported that 
nothing was to be found of a character that would war- 
rant the bringing of a single charge against him, much 
less his removal from office. Still more than this, ■when 
the entire forces of the Federal administration were 
brought to bear for the displacement of General Arthur 
from the custom house, President Hayes and Secretary 
Sherman themselves, in their official utterances upon 
the subject, gave unmistakable and unreserved testimony 
to the purity and integrity of his official acts. Cumulative 
evidence like this, brought together from so many 
sources, makes a case irresistible in its force, in favor of 
the personal and official character of the man whom it 
bolsters and defends, if need for defense there be. 

The story of the removal remains to be told, briefly. 



424 LIFE OF CHESTER A. ARTHUR. 

The services of Mr. Arthur to the Republican party in 
New York City and State have already been outlined. It 
may readily be supposed that so much unselfish ability 
and strength in action would be ever in requisition by 
his fellow-partisans. Among the high places in the party 
councils he was called to fill, was that which he still holds, 
of chairman of the Republican State committee of New 
York. The character of his service in this distinguished 
position, and the political methods pursued by him, are 
not known to have been obnoxious to the President and 
the secretary of the treasury; but it was held that his 
service as such, while in place as a Federal official, was 
inconsistent with the Presidential notion of civil service 
reform, and in contrariety to Mr. Hayes' famous order 
concerning the participation of officers of the United 
States in partisan politics. He was, therefore, in the 
summer of 1878, requested by the President to retire 
either from his coUectorship or from the chairmanship of 
the State committee. His own views of the duty of the 
citizen in political affairs, however, forbade his compli- 
ance, and he, in conjunction with powerful friends, in- 
cluding Senator Conkling as their leader and voice, de- 
termined to make a test case of this before the senate of 
the United States. The nomination of General Merritt 
as his successor in the custom-house, together with that 
of a new incumbent to the naval office in New York City, 
was sent to the senate early in the ensuing session, and 
was hotly debated in the executive sessions of that body. 
No impeachment of his personal character was at- 
tempted; and we have seen that even the President and 



OFFICIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE. 425 

secretary of the treasury, who were earnest and persistent 
in seeking his removal, had no imputation to cast upon 
that. The great petition for his retention, signed by a 
host of influential names, has also been referred to; but 
not the important and significant fact, which may well 
come in here, that General Arthur was so desirous that 
his case should be decided simply upon its merits that 
he took measures for the suppression of the petition — a 
fact probably not generally known to the country, and 
which is another item to the credit of the general's mod- 
esty and merit. The influence of the administration, 
however, and the feeling that it would not answer to an- 
tagonize it altogether in a matter of this kind, prevailed 
to secure the confirmation of the new nominations by a 
small majority. The efforts of Senator Conkling and 
others' in the same body were faithful and unremitting to 
prevent it; but different counsels were in the ascendant 
for the time being; and so the general gave place, with- 
out murmur or complaint, to another of equally high 
character, and stepped down from his lofty station to 
engage again in the quieter, more tranquil pursuits of 
civil life. 

Since his retirement from the custom-house General 
Arthur has resumed the practice of his profession, with- 
out anxiety for his political future or effort to secure 
pohtical advancement. Remaining constant to his dis- 
tinguished friend, ex-President Grant, who had twdce 
bestowed upon him unsolicited honors, he was an ardent 
advocate of the general's nomination to the Presidency, 
and in the late Chicago convention was one of the lead- 



426 LIFE OF CHESTER A. ARTHUR. 

ers of the solid unbroken column that stood b}^ the ex- 
President to the end. When the end came, however, 
and another was the declared choice of the convention. 
General Arthur gracefully submitted with the rest, all 
unthinking that the second honor in the gift of the great 
body, the nomination to the second office in the gift of 
the people, was to fall upon himself. Again, unsolicited 
and unsought, high dignity was awarded to him. On Tues- 
day, June 8th, the last day of the convention, by unani- 
mous vote. General Chester Allan Arthur, of New York, 
the subject of this notice, was nominated, amid great en- 
thusiasm and endless congratulations, as the Republican 
candidate for vice-president in the pending campaign. 
During the remainder of that day, and in the evening 
that followed, scores of congratulatory telegrams were 
received by him, and one from St. Albans, Vermont, 
informed him that there, upon his native heath, the re- 
joicing people were firing fifty guns in honor of his 
nomination. Since then there has been general congrat- 
ulation among Republicans and the personal friends of 
General Arthur that, by a lucky stroke at the right mo- 
ment, he was secured for the second place on the ticket, 
and that by his nomination, together with the high ex- 
cellence of the nomination for the first place. New York, 
New Jersey, and probably other States heretofore re- 
garded as doubtful, are made safe for the Republican 
nominees in November. 

General i\.rthur is a man of superior physique and 
commanding presence. He is above six feet in height, 
broad-shouldered, deep-chested, athletic, and fine in face 



OFFICIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE. 427 

as in figure. He retains much of the liigh culture and 
literary tastes received by him from a scholarly parentage 
and by education ; but is withal, like the present occup- 
ant of the vice-presidential chair, an ardent disciple of 
the gentle angler, Isaak Walton, and loves to spend his 
leisure hours beside the trout-brooks and the waters 
where the greater varieties of the finny tribe abide. His 
manners are genial and cordial, and his popularity among 
all classes of his acquaintance is very great. Among 
business circles in New York he is considered the most 
popular man in the metropolis. 

Shortly after his admission to the bar and beginning 
of practice in New York, General Arthur was married to 
a daughter of Lieutenant Herndon, a brave officer of 
the United States navy, who was lost with his vessel at 
sea, going down with it with the utmost coolness and 
courage, calmly smoking his cigar as he sank beneath the 
waves. Mrs. Herndon, his widow, and the mother-in-law 
of General Arthur, was voted a gold medal by congress, in 
recognition of the distinguished gallantry displayed by 
him on this occasion. Her daughter, Mrs. Arthur, died 
only a short time since, leaving two children to comfort 
their bereaved father. 



ERRATUM. 

The following should follow the letter of Oakes Ames 
bearing date January 30, 1868. On the back of this 
letter was the following list of names with the amount of 
stock sold to each, sworn by McComb to be Mr. Ames' 
list of the purchases : 

Blaine of Maine $3,000 

Patterson of N. H 3,00c 

Wilson of Mass 2,000 



Painter (Rep.) for Quigley.. 3,000 

S. Colfax, speaker 2,000 

Scofield and Kelley, Pa. each 2,000 



Eliot, Massachusetts $3,000 

Dawes, Massachusetts 2, 000 

Fowler, Tennessee 2,000 

Boutwell, Massachusetts. .. , 2,000 
Bingham and Garfield, Ohio 
each 2,000 



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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



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